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CDEffilGHT DEPOSm 



GRENSTONE POEMS 



BY WITTER BYNNER 



Young Harvard 
and other poems 

Tiger 

The Little King 
The New World 
Iphigenia in Tauris 
Grenstone Poems 



Digitized by the Internet Archive 
in 2011 with funding from 
The Library of Congress 



http://www.archive.org/details/grenstonepoemsseOObynn 




"It was true that he had lived In the silent places, beside the Grand 

Canyon" — Page g. 



GRENSTONE POEMS 



A SEQUENCE 



BY 



WITTER BYNNER 

Author of "The New World," Etc. 



WITH COVER AND FRONTISPIECE BY 
SPENCER BAIRD NICHOLS 




NEW YORK 

FREDERICK A. STOKES COMPANY 

PUBLISHERS 



S«*^' 



H^^,A\1 



Copyright, igi7, by 
Frederick A. Stokes Company 



All rights reserved 



SEP 24 1917 !- 

©CLA473640 



TO 

HANIEL LONG 

HER FRIEND AND MINE 
IN GRENSTONE 



CONTENTS 

A GRACE BEFORE THE POEMS 

I. GRENSTONE 

/. ON THE WAY TO GRENSTONE 

How could I guess what difference was in store — 
/ who had never really loved before? 

Birthright 5 

Foreign Hills 6 

Hills of Home 7 

The Road 8 

The Telegraph Poles 9 

On THE Train ii 

Early April IN Grenstone .... 13 

//. NEIGHBORS AND THE COUNTRY- 
SIDE 

People and places are alive with light — 
Before the sun itself moves into sight. 

Luke 17 

Neighbors 18 

The Beau 19 

A Farmer Remembers Lincoln . . 20 

The Fields . 22 

[vii] 



Contents 

GRY.n'^TO'^E— Continued 

Mercy 23 

Pan 24 

The Circus 25 

Astronomy 34 

Vantage 35 

Summer in Grenstone 36 

Grenstone Falls 37 

To A Phoebe-Bird ....... 38 

Ghosts of Indians 40 

Poplars 41 

A Thrush in the Moonlight ... 42 

///. CHILDREN AND DEATH 

Children and meadows darken with the rain- — 
Before the sun comes by them up the lane. 

Lullaby 45 

As A Child 46 

Kids 47 

Winner of Second 50 

The Snowball . 52 

The Birthday 53 

A Playmate 54 

Darkness 55 

Grasses 56 

An Old Elegy 57 

Poor Richard ........ 58 

Change ' . 59 

Hostelry 60 

[ viii ] 



Contents 

GRENSTONE-— Co«//V;wf^ 

Good Lads 62 

Luck 63 

JUDD 64 

Singing Past the Cemetery ... 65 

The Farmer 66 

The Miner 67 

Heigho 68 

Enough 69 

Nocturne 70 

IV. DALLIANCE 

Then sometimes, as we skip along for fun. 
Our shoe-laces and duties come undone. 

To-morrow 73 

The Naughty Angel 74 

The Ten Commandments .... 75 

A Wanderer 76 

O, I Have Seen in Grenstone ... 77 

Marriage 78 

One Day When I Rode Pegasus . . 79 

The Mirror 80 

The Secret 81 

The Coquette 82 

The Skeptic 83 

A Ballad of Undaunted Youth . . 84 

World's End 87 

The Old Mill 89 

A Moment 91 

[ix] 



Contents 

GRENSTONE—CoTz/mw^'i 

Sun and Moon 92 

In Love 93 

Young Eden 94 

Blow Hot, Blow Cold ..... 99 

Battles Long Ago 100 

The Seeker loi 

God's Fool 102 

Treasure . 103 

The Rider 104 

The Heart of Gold 105 

Once of All My Friends .... 106 

The Dead Loon 107 

Oblivion 108 

F. WISDOM AND UNWISDOM 

How we resolve and reason and explain 
The various ways we take the sun and rain! 

Beauty iii 

To Yourself 112 

To Myself 113 

The New Life . 114 

Wisdom 115 

Folly 116 

A Sail 117 

A Grenstone Glade 119 

To No One in Particular . . . . 121 

Be Not Too Frank 122 

The New Love 123 

The Balance 124 

[x] 



Contents 
GRENSTONE— Co7z//V7WP^ 

VL THE OLD CRY 

And in the very midst of explanation. 
We cry the single cry of all creation. 

Capture 127 

Youth 129 

A Prayer for Beauty 130 

A Lane in Grenstone 131 

VII. CELIA 

And O how suddenly the cry rings true. 
Changing, no longer saying I — but Yott! 

Celia 135 

The Early Gods 136 

Interpreter 137 

Seas and Leaves 138 

In Many Streets 140 

Yes 141 

The Touch of You 142 

On Earth 143 

Rose-Time 144 

Chariots 145 

When the First Bird Sang .... 146 

Sapphics for Celia 147 

Encounter 152 

A Tent-Song 153 

Under the Mountain 154 

A Shepherd of Stars 155 

[xi] 



Contents 

II. AWAY FROM GRENSTONE 

/. AN INLAND CITY 

After the voice I had always waited for, 
O how can there be distance any more? 

My Citizen i6i 

No Man's Clerk 162 

One of the Crowd 163 

With a Copy of "The Shropshire 

Lad" 165 

A Justice Remembers Lincoln . . 166 

Hobbledehoy 169 

The Poet 170 

The Death-Bed of a Certain Rich 

Man 172 

//. WEST 

Can prairies, towns and mountains separate 
Whisper from whisper, answering mate from, matef 

I Turn and Find You 175 

Kansas 176 

The Hills of San Jose 178 

A Bazaar by the Sea 179 

The Golden Gate 181 

My Country . 182 

Train-Mates 183 

Shasta 186 

Acknowledgment 188 

[xii] 



Contents 

AWAY FROM GRENSTONE— Co/z//«we^ 

///. SOUTH 

Some of love's words I missed when I was near — 
/ must be far from thcrUj to hear them clear. 

A Torch 193 

Honeycomb 194 

A MocKiNG-BiRD 196 

Good Morning, Mr. Mocking-Bird . 197 

A Grenstone Elm 199 

O Take Me Up To Grenstone . , 200 

IV. A CITY BY THE SEA 

Above the noise of countless busy men 
The Voice I love whispers again — again. 

Presence 203 

To a Painter 204 

Apollo Troubadour 205 

To A Field-Sparrow 210 

What Man Can Call Me Captive? 211 

A Spring Song in a Cafe . . . . 213 

The Highest Bidder 214 

Israel 215 

Across the Counter . . . . , . 217 

Home . 218 

Union Square - , . 219 

Diana Captive . 220 

A Night Thought .,,.,. 222 

The Path , . . 223 

Journey .......... 224 

[ xiii ] 



Contents 

III. GRENSTONE AGAIN 
/. CELIA 

Each of love's lovely words but makes the rest 
The lovelier — //// all are loveliest. 

Journey's, End 231 

Grenstone 232 

Lest I Learn . 233 

Beyond a Mountain ...... 234 

The Mystic . 236 

Breath 237 

11, NEWS 

If a word of doom arrives — love, hearing it. 
Can make the deathful tidings exquisite. 

Passing Near 241 

"They Brought Me Bitter News" 244 

The Fling 245 

Tidings 246 

An Angel 247 

Grieve Not for Beauty . . . . . 248 

Three Poplars 249 

///. HAND IN HAND 

A lover, with new eyes, can turn and see 
All men companions in his destiny. 

The Calendar 253 

Little Pan 254 

[xiv] 



Contents 

GRENSTONE AGAIN— Continued 

God's Acre 256 

To Any One 257 

War 258 

The Faith 259 

IV. WOMEN 

And women are his awe: so that he pays 
New homage and new service all his days. 

In the Cool of the Evening . . . 263 

Responses 266 

Annunciation 267 

V. LOSING CELIA 

How could I dream that darkness would close in 
On everything that shall be or has been! 

The Night 273 

I Heard Her Sing 274 

Surety 276 

Farewell 277 

At the Last 278 

Hic Jacet . 279 

Distance 280 

There is Not Anything 281 

It is Not She! 282 

Aloof 283 

Tryst in Grenstone 284 

Sentence 285 

[xv] 



Contents 

GRENSTONE AGAm~Continued 
VL FINDING CELIA 

There is no death for lovers — // there shine 

Such light through other s darkness as through mine. 

The Wind at the Door 289 

The Way of Beauty , 290 

A Masque of Life and Death . . . 291 

During a Chorale by Cesar Franck 292 

Songs Ascending 294 

A Prayer 295 

VIL AN END AND A BEGINNING 

Creator and created, God shall be 
Born for evermore — of her and me. 

How Can I Know You All? . . . 299 

For I Am Nothing If I Am Not All 301 

Open House 303 

Consummation 305 

Behold the Man 307 



Acknowledgment is due to the editors of The Century, Harper^s, The Yale Review, 
The Little Review, The Masses, The American, McClure's, The New Republic, Reedy's 
Mirror, The Bellman, The Delineator, Poetry, The Poetry Journal, The Poetry Review, 
The Midland, The Metropolitan, The Bookman, Lippincott's, The Smart Set, The 
Harvard Advocate, Sunset: The Pacific Monthly, Everybody's, The Pictorial Review, 
The Forum and The Nation, for their permission to reprint certain of these poems, 
and to Mitchell Kennerley for permission to reprint as a lyric a brief passage from 
"The New World." 



[xvi] 



A Grace Before 
the Poems 



A GRACE BEFORE THE POEMS 

^'Is there such a place as Grenstonef^ 

Celia, hear them ask! 
Tell me, shall we share it with them? — 

Shall we let them breathe and bask 

On the windy, sunny pasture, 

Where the hill-top turns its face 

Toward the valley of the mountain, 
Our beloved place? 

Shall we show them through our churchyard, 

With its crumbling wall 
Set between the dead and living? 

Shall our willow ed waterfall. 

Huckleberries, pines and bluebirds 
Be a secret we shall share? . . . 

// they make but little of it, 
Celia, shall we care? 



I. GRENSTONE 



/. ON THE WAY TO GREN STONE 



How could I guess what difference was in store- 
I who had never really loved before? 



On the Way 
to Grenstone 



BIRTHRIGHT 

I TOO was born in Arcady; 
My mother, who should know, 
Whispered it through death to me. 

But it was long ago; 
And there are fathers in my blood 
Who never would have understood 

A son of Arcady, 
Nor think it augurs any good 
And cannot let it be. 

So what these sponsors do, forsooth, 

That I may understand, 
Is in my blood to tell me truth 

That never any land 
Was such a place as Arcady . . . 
And yet my mother says to me, 

Who left me long ago, 
"You too were born in Arcady — 

Should not your mother know?'* 

[5] 



Grenstone 



FOREIGN HILLS 

YOU would not think that, lost so young 
Here in this outer land, 
I still should feel my spirit wrung 
And still not understand . . . 

Though Grenstone is the name they said, 

And though I pack my load 
And though my cap is on my head — 

What do I care which road? 

What does it matter where I go, 

When all I do is roam 
Far from a place I used to know. 

From hills and streams of home? 

And foreign waters only smart 

The lips that they caress 
And foreign hills but bruise the heart 

With vanished happiness. 

[6] 



On the Way 
to Grensto?je 



HILLS OF HOME 

NAME me no names for my disease, 
With unlnformlng breath; 
I tell you I am none of these, 
But homesick unto death — 

Homesick for hills that I had known, 
For brooks that I had crossed, 

Before I met this flesh and bone 
And followed and was lost . . . 

And though they break my heart at last, 

Yet name no name of ills. 
Say only, "Here is where he passed, 

Seeking again those hills." 



[7] 



Grenstone 



THE ROAD 

IT was gay, starting— 
When love was goal and goad, 
With a feathered hope for darting 
And an open foe for fighting ... 

I knew no parting, 
While love was still a torch on the road 
Of reuniting. 

But when love's fire 
Had nothing more to show 

But a windy spark, 

Then came the dire 
Adventure — and the foe 
I could not touch nor ever tire 
Laughed in the driving dark. 



[8] 



On the Way 
to Grenstone 



THE TELEGRAPH-POLES 

CHAINED a miraculous way, 
Rounding the world in their flight- 
Prophets of death in the day, 
Warning of life in the night — 

Naked, fettered trees, 

Miles over field, over fen. 
Swift beside rails to the seas. 

They motionless move among men. 

Sometimes the file on its march 
Waits with a beggared look 

For the touch of a leafy arch. 

For the breath of the turn of a brook. 

The rain with a freshening sound 
Falls on the marshes — but now 

Moistens no root underground. 
Misses the glistening bough. 

[9] 



Gr ens tone 



And birds, to renew their wings, 
Come as of old — ^but the wires 

Have none of the joy of the strings 
Trembling in leafy-hung lyres. 

Stripped of their verdure by men, 

As men have been stripped of their souls, 

Prophets are wandering again — 
See them?— the telegraph-poles I 



[lO] 



On the Way 
to Grenstone 



ON THE TRAIN 

WHY write about It? How do I know? 
But what I see I now set down, 
For In my pulse the touch and flow 
Of spring has entered from the urgent show 
Of river, hill and town . . . 



The bends of the Connecticut 

Reflecting rows of pine and birch; 
The banks of brush that climb and jut; 
A castle full of corn; a workman's hut; 
A pig, a barn, a church; 



A boy blue-shlrted at his ease 

Fishing; a hawk, the peak of a cloud; 
A man's head on a woman's knees; 
Italians singing on the railroad; — these 
Enter with spring and crowd 

[II] 



Grenstone 



My heart and are my company 

And lead me low and lead me high 
As a swallow flying, trying to be 
Water and earth and air. And what I see 
I write, not knowing why . . . 

Nor why I flow and pour and burn 

Bright as the rim of yonder dam, 
Nor why with the swallow I dart and turn, 
Trying to be 4:hese things that I discern — 
Until I am, I ami 



[12] 



On the Way 
to Grenstone 



EARLY APRIL IN GRENSTONE 

THE freshets are free and the Ice Is afloat 
And the stems of the willows are red in 
the air, 
The crows in long companies echo their note 

And the little birds dare 
With their breasts of dawn and their wings of 

noon 
To tell that the bluets are following soon. 

Then a sudden cold night over hollows and hills 

Lays a thickness of snow, for the inclines of day 

And the meadows and bright multitudinous rills 

To gather away . . . 
As yesterday's beauty, returning, shall blend 
With the morrow's new beauty — as I with a 
friend I 



[13] 



//. NEIGHBORS AND THE COUNTRY- 
SIDE 



People and places are alive with light — 
Before the sun itself moves into sight. 



Neighbors and 
the Countryside 



LUKE 

BAREHEADED, with his bearded 
throat 
Open and brown, Luke was a friend 
Who never greeted you by rote: 
His good-day seemed itself to lend 

A means of making the day good; 

He had an ear for any true 
Request or need; he understood 

The many and the few. 

I asked him in Grenstone, near a bed 

Of those big strawberries he grew, 

"Tell me your secret, Luke," I said, 

"Why everybody's fond of you?" 

"My learning quit with the little red school, 
And secrets mostly bother me — 

But there's darn good sense in the golden 
rule . . . 
I'm fond o' them," said he. 

[17] 



Grenstone 



NEIGHBORS 

LET me have faith, is what I pray, 
And let my faith be strong! — 
But who am I, is what I say. 
To think my neighbor wrong? 

And though my neighbor may deny 
True faith could be so slight. 

May call me wrong, yet who am I 
To think my neighbor right? 

We may discover by and by 
Making our wisdom double, 

That he is right and so am I — ' 
And save a lot of trouble. 



[i8] 



Neighbors and 
the Countryside 



THE BEAU 

HERE goes the dandy down the street, 
As fine a fellow as you'll meet, 
And cocks his hat. 
But whither leads a dapper tread? — 
My poor old father long since dead 
Was good at that. 

My mother heard my father's plea 
And soon presented him with me; 

So that he died: 
And here am I, waistcoat and all, 
The image of my father's fall, 

As of his pride. 

Grandames, who watched through darken- 
ing blind 
The neatest fellow they could find 

With stick and spat, 
Now see a newer dandy stare 
With the same unconquerable air 

And cock his hat. 

[19] 



Grenstone 



A FARMER REMEMBERS LINCOLN 



LINCOLN?— 
Well, I was in the old Second Maine, 
The first regiment in Washington from the Pine 

Tree State. 
Of course I didn't get the butt of the clip; 
We was there for guardin' Washington — 
We was all green. 



"I ain't never ben to but one theater in my life — 

I didn't know how to behave. 

I ain't never ben since. 

I can see as plain as my hat the box where he 

sat in 
When he was shot. 
I can tell you, sir, there was a panic 
When we found our President was in the shape 

he was in! 
Never saw a soldier in the world but what liked 

him. 

[20] 



Neighbors and 
the Countryside 

"Yes, sir. His looks was kind o' hard to forget. 

He was a spare man, 

An old farmer. 

Everything was all right, you know. 

But he wan't a smooth-appearin' man at all — 

Not In no ways; 

Thin-faced, long-necked. 

And a swellln' kind of a thick Up like. 

"And he was a jolly old fellow — always cheerful; 
He wan't so high but the boys could talk to him 

their own ways. 
While I was servin' at the Hospital 
He'd come in and say, "You look nice in here," 
Praise us up, you know. 
And he'd bend over and talk to the boys — 
And he'd talk so good to 'em — so close — 
That's why I call him a farmer. 
I don't mean that everything about him wan't all 

right, you understand, 
It's just — well, I was a farmer — 
And he was my neighbor, anybody's neighbor. 

"I guess even you young folks would 'a' liked 
him." 

[21] 



Grenstone 



THE FIELDS 

THOUGH wisdom underfoot 
Dies in the bloody fields, 
Slowly the endless root 
Gathers again and yields. 

In fields where hate has hurled 
Its force, where folly rots, 

Wisdom shall be uncurled 
Small as forget-m.e-nots. 



[22] 



Neighbors and 
the Countryside 



MERCY 



a 



HE took your coat away? 
Then go and fold 
Your cloak around him too — 
Lest he be cold. 



"And if he took from you 
Your daily bread, 
Offer your heart to him — 
That he be fed. 

"And if you gave him all 
Your life could give, 
Give him your death as well- 
That he may live." 



[23] 



Grenstone 



PAN 
TT 7HILE chopping trees down on a summer's 

A broad young farmer asked me what I read. 
I showed the title to him, Pan Is Dead. 

*Gosh! What a name I" he laughed — and 
hacked away. 



[24] 



Neighbors and 
the Countryside 



THE CIRCUS 

I WENT to-night to a country circus. 
There had been a parade at noon, 

Strewn out along the village street under the elms 
and maples: 

A bugler, and gilt wagons, and a young Indian 
with eyes calm as the desert; and men In 
western costumes, with dark and weathered 
faces; 

And a lioness looking from a corner of a cage out 
over the grass of a field toward tree-trunks ; 

And a clown riding trickily backward on a bicycle, 
all the small bicycles in the village trailing 
him; 

And a band of musicians In buckskins and tan 
shirts, with red handkerchiefs round their 
necks, sedately but youthfully blowing dis- 
cords — 

All but the drummer with his drum, which can- 
not be discordant; 

[25] 



Grenstone 

And at the beginning of the procession, and re- 
membered also at the end, 

A gray-haired man with a responsible shrewd 
face. 

And in the evening, outside the smaller tent in the 
flare of a jetting movable light, 

The gray-haired man, between two Indians, did 
an old-fashioned trick, interlinking solid 
rings, 

And talked shrewdly and responsibly for a long 
time. 

And under his breath he remarked afterwards, 
not so much criticism as pride, that he had 
seen more drunkenness that morning in the 
village than among his whole troupe on their 
whole trip. 

Having already said aloud like a preacher that 
his wife traveled with him, that there was 
no immorality in the troupe and that two 
carpenters had been discharged that morn- 
ing for profanity. 

And in the rush for tickets there was bumping 
and wedging; 

[26] 



Neighbors and 
the Countryside 

And there stood stalwart, guarding the ticket- 
booth and advising the line, a youth whose 
voice had the drawl of the south and whose 
eyes were gray and sentimental and whose 
mouth was sullen and tobacco-stained; 

And the sentiment faded out of his eyes when 
he told three countrymen, who tried to force 
their way into the line by means of banter, 

That he had money enough in his pocket to pay a 
fine; 

And they went back and quietly took their places 
at the end, but not until he had sent their 
damn souls to hell. 



And then In the smaller tent a silent young squaw, 
like an Egyptian child, held the head of a 
python while her husband, the Indian of the 
procession, standing behind her, moved and 
guided the silver coils and mottles of the 
python round her body and watched her with 
eyes that had seen the west. 

And a pony counted numbers and told time with 
his paw. 

[27] 



Grenstone 

And Punch had his unflagging game with Judy. 

And a pale Swede, with a paunch, alarmed the 
lioness by rattling the door of her cage, then 
opened it and stood inside for a quick mo- 
ment — 

And always the gray-haired man shrewdly and 
responsibly announcing. 

And the Indian and his squaw sang in sweet, 
strange voices a modern tune to their own 
words, and his gestures were the world-old 
gestures of beauty; 

And he played the harmonica deftly on one side 
and then on the other, alternating, no pause, 
and cupped it with a strong dark hand. 

Then suddenly, outside toward the larger tent, the 
youngsters blared discords; 

And presently he stopped. 

They said that he was a chief and he may well 
have been. 

For not even appearing six or seven times each 
afternoon and six or seven times each eve- 
ning and selling beads betweenwhiles to make 
New England holidays and his own spending- 

[28] 



Neighbors and 
the Countryside 

money, not even that had undone the dignity 
of his brow and straight nose, or the aloof- 
ness of his courtesy, or the silence behind his 
speech when I questioned him, like the stars 
over city roofs. 

He was a Sioux, but had come from Arizona, 

And when I questioned further, it was true that 
he had lived in the silent places 

Beside the Grand Canyon. 

And he let me see for a moment that he knew by 
what I said about the Canyon, and by what I 
could not say, that I, too, felt his silence 
and the river that pours through it unheard. 

Then we all went into the larger tent, which was 
open to the night. 

And there was first the small pomp of the pro- 
cession, more fitting for some reason under 
the night sky than under the elms at noon. 

And there was swift riding and shrill calling. 

And there was a woman on a glossy horse that 
drew gently backward in a circle like 
memory, or stepped forward In diiEcult slow 
time like anticipation — 

[29] 



Grenstone 

And the woman's face was like petrified wood 
at dusk; 

And there was a quadrille of horses carrying the 
young men with dark faces, some of which, 
when they came by the light, were lean and 
wan. 

And there was incessantly the accompaniment by 
the young musicians; among whom was a 
woman who played the cornet when neces- 
sary and the rest of the time coughed. 

And there was a young man with his shirt cut 
diagonally across his back and chest and 
deep under his arms, to show the muscles 
moving like little waves when he lifted and 
lowered himself and twined around the hang- 
ing rings, or balanced horizontal and, by a 
strap from his neck, held a workman off the 
ground. 

And there was a thin Mexican boy whose nerves 
tingled with the nerves of the horses as he 
ran alongside them and leapt into the saddle 
and out again and leaned and curved with 
the lean and curve of the horses and ejacu- 
lated little phrases in a small harsh voice. 

[30] 



Neighbors and 
the Countryside 

And there was an experienced thick-set man whose 
eye could calculate distance and motion and 
whose hand could throw a noose round a 
swift-moving horseman's neck or waist, or 
round the horse's head or haunches or legs, 
or round the bodies of four horses urged in 
a group by four riders with spurs. 

And there was a broncho that made a noise with 
the nostrils neither whinny nor neigh and a 
man in a yellow shirt who stayed astride him, 
while five men on foot shouted and yelled 
and the people on the lower benches drew 
back from the sharp bucking. 

And the Mexican boy, seizing his turn with avid- 
ity, swung a circle of rope round his curls 
and stepped through it and back again and 
let it widen and widen until he swayed within 
It even smaller than he had been and thinner 
and swifter. 

And there were clowns, and many little boys In 
the audience equally open-mouthed for 
laughing or for watching. 

And there were peanuts, and tickets for the con- 

[31] 



Grenstone 

cert, and cold lemonade, and the chill of 
night, and the smell of the lights, and dust 
from the rush of the horses. 

And there were the shadowy crowds. 

And there was again the young Indian, with 
beads over his arm, offering them not in- 
sistently nor anxiously, but with silence and 
certainty and an arm out now and then as if 
he were showing me the Grand Canyon of 
the Colorado . . . 

Whose vast and rusted deeps were unmoving but 
for the slow, blue, diagonal line of twi- 
light, as clear as the blue, diagonal shirt 
across the flesh of the fellow in the hanging 
rings . . . 

And from the edge of the canyon a blue-jay 
darted and poised and chirped, as undaunted 
as the Mexican boy darting and uttering his 
small, hoarse phrases over the edge of 
death . . . 

That rim 

Where the sky at night is tipped upside down and 
silence is brought whole to your feet. 

The silence containing China and Syria and Egypt 

[323 



Neighbors and 
the Countryside 

and all their architecture and swift motions 
and their pyramids and unremembered 
speech — 
And a river that pours unheard. 



[33] 



Grenstone 



ASTRONOMY 

WHETHER there are peopled stars 
Other than our own and Mars, 
We shall either know or not 
When we're done with what we've got. 

But there's something stranger far 
Than wee folk on a great star, 
When there dwell such mighty skies 
In such little people's eyes. 



[34] 



Neighbors and 
the Countryside 



VANTAGE 

ALL is not well — so you go on 
With what a wilful way, 
And you are bound where others have gone, 
You are as sure as they. 

All must be well or you're off in a trice — 

Therefore you never stay; 
For you crave in summer streams of ice, 

In winter growing hay. 

You cannot bear it cut and dried 

And pitched and put away, 
And you cannot bear it green and wide 

Over the mounds of May. 

You cry for all good things, you dunce, 

Together in one day. 
You are as young as I was once — 

With what a wilful way! 

[35] 



Grenstone 



SUMMER IN GRENSTONE 

UMMER, I bring my knees again 
To your shrine of lighted sky: 
With silent wonder worshiping, 

Deep in the grass I lie 
In wonderful fright of a bumblebee, 

Or a rapid speck of red, 
Or an ant with little bandy legs 

And a little tugging head; 
In wondering league with his busy speed, 

(What is it makes him spry? — 
The many little sandy domes 

Of the kingdom in his eye?) 
In tune with the gleeful wit of a bird; 

And, at far-off puffs of a train, 
Content with the wonders made by men, 

Though made they be with pain. 
For by these wonders yours I see; 

Summer, holy, sweet; — 
And here in selfish faith again 

I kneel before your feet. 

[36] 



Neighbors and 
the Countryside 



GRENSTONE FALLS 

THERE'S a hollow under the falls 
Where happy fellows play — 
You can hear their laughter and their calls 
A mile away, 
Greeting the spray . . . 

You brace on the slant of the rock, 
You slide along — till it comes 

From face to feet with a shivering shock. 
An avalanche of drums ! 

And when you shout and dive, 

With water and air above, 
O, It's like finding yourself alive 

With the only one you love ! 

And then, where a nested haystack waits — 
Two happy mates, 

You and the sun, 

When the courting's done. 

Lie like one. 

[37] 



Grenstone 



TO A PHOEBE-BIRD 

UNDER the eaves, out of the wet, 
You nest within my reach; 
You never sing for me and yet 
You have a golden speech. 

You sit and quirk a rapid tail, 

Wrinkle a ragged crest, 
Then pirouette from tree to rail 

And vault from rail to nest. 

And when in frequent, dainty fright 

You grayly slip and fade, 
And when at hand you re-alight 

Demure and unafraid, 

And when you bring your brood its fill 

Of iridescent wings 
And green legs dewy in your bill. 

Your silence is what sings. 

[38] 



Neighbors and 
the Countryside 



Not of a feather that enjoys 
To prate or praise or preach, 

O phoebe, with so little noise, 
What eloquence you teach ! 



[39] 



Gr ens tone 



GHOSTS OF INDIANS 

INDIAN-FOOTED move the mists 
From the corner ot the lake, 
Silent, sinuous and bent; 
And their trailing feathers shake. 
Tremble to forgotten leapings, 
^Yhile with lingerings and creepings 
Down they lean again to slake 
The dead thirst of parching mouths, 
Lean their pale mouths in the lake. 

Indian-footed move the mists 

That were hiding in the pine, 

Out upon the oval lake 

In a bent and ghostly line 

Lean and drink for better sleeping . , 

Then they turn again and — creeping, 

Gliding as with fur and hns — 

Disappear through woods and water 

On a thousand moccasins. 

[40] 



Neighbors and 
the Countryside 



POPLARS 

POPLARS against a mountain 
Seem frequently to me 
To be little-windowed cities 
And sun-waves on the sea. 

Perhaps dead men remember 
Those beckonings of fire, 

Waves that have often crumbled 
And windows of desire . . . 

Another year and some one, 
Standing where I now stand, 

Shall watch my tree rekindle, 
From ancient sea and land — 

The beckoning of an ocean. 
The beckoning of a town, 

Till the sun's behind the mountain 
And the wind dies down. 

[41] 



Grenstone 



I 



A THRUSH IN THE MOONLIGHT 

N came the moon and covered me with wonder, 
Touched me and was near me and made me 



very still. 
In came a rush of song, like rain after thunder, 
Pouring Importunate on my window-sill. 

I lowered my head, I hid it, I would not see nor 

hear. 
The birdsong had stricken me, had brought the 

moon too near. 
But when I dared to lift my head, night began to 

fill 
With singing In the darkness. And then the 

thrush grew still. 

And the moon came in, and silence, on my window- 
sill. 



[42] 



in, —CHILDREN AND DEATH 



Children and meadows darken with the rain- 
Before the sun comes by them up the lane. 



Children and 
Death 



LULLABY 



(( 



I'LL send you now sailing across the sea, 
I'll send you now sailing away — 
Out where the fishes love to be, 
Out where the gulls 
Are at play. 



*'But soon you'll come sailing from 
far away, 
Come sailing from over the sea — 
Back where my baby loves to stay, 
Back again home 
To me." 



[45] 



Grenstone 



AS A CHILD 

LET me in death but slip away 
From people and the light of day 
As when a child I found my rest 
On my mother's soothing breast. 

Let them not come and sit around 
With solemn face and whispered sound 
Such comfort I have never known 
As with my mother all alone. 



[46] 



Children and 
Death 



KIDS 



a 



HEY, I've found some money-wort, 
Some day I'll be rich !— 
Or I wonder If it's checkerberry? — 
I don't know which is which. 



"Look, don't touch that blade of grass, 
Just keep away from it ! 
For see that frothy bubbly ball? — 
That's snake-spit! 

"Cover your lips, the darning-needle 
Loves to sew 'em up 1 — 
Who likes butter? Lift your chin — 
Here's a buttercup. 

"She loves me — she loves me not — 
I wish that I knew why 
It always comes a different way 
Every time I try. 

[47] 



Grenstone 



"How many children? — Here you are- 
You can have three blows — 
And you don't want many children, 
For you have to buy 'em clo'es. 

"Now we can take the stems, see, 
And wet 'em into curls 
And stick 'em in our hair and run 
And make believe we're girls. 



<t 



D'y' ever whistle a blade of grass? 
Look, I got a fat one . . . 
You slit it, see? Here's one for you- 
There's no snake-spit on that one. 



"Aren't big people funny 
That they don't want to play? 
And some of 'em don't like ice-cream — 
I couldn't be that way. 

"They just sit round and talk and talk — 
O' course their hands are clean. 
But they make us wash ours all the time. 
I couldn't be that mean, 

[48] 



Children and 
Death 



"No, honestly I couldn't, 
Could you? I'd sooner die. 
We'll dig some worms to-morrow 
Andgofishin'! Goo'-by!" 



[49] 



Grenstone 



WINNER OF SECOND 

LOOK me In the face, Tom, 
Give me your hand to shake ! 
I saw you run your race, Tom, 
And I saw the sudden break 
Bring hot upon your forehead 

The anger asking why; 
And there were more who saw It, 
Others as well as I. 



We tried to make a protest, 

We crowded round the track; 
But the judges had not noticed 

His arm that swung you back. 
Although that's what they're for, Tom, 

To spy a fault or foul. 
We liked you for all the more, Tom, 

For swiftness of your soul, 
[so] 



Children and 
Death 



You heard the winner's statement 

And silently you backed 
His word without abatement 

Of your knowledge of the fact. 
But, Tom, the dust shall thicken 

On a forgotten prize, 
And victory shall quicken 

In your remembered eyes! 



[SI] 



Grenstone 



THE SNOWBALL 



EACH year a fuller year surely preferred 
To all the others," was old age's word . . 
Till like a well-aimed snowball came the cry 
Of youth, running and impudent, *'You lie !" 



[52] 



Children and 
Death 



THE BIRTHDAY 

A LAUGHING, panting little Pan, 
A happy Pete on his fourth birthday. 
Dropping his arms of golden tan, 
Solemn a moment, suddenly ran 
Back to his play. 

Then, "What's the matter?" said Pete to me, 

Hearing me laugh, hearing me sigh . . . 
"I'm not so young as I used to be," 
I answered — and quick as a bird said he, 
"Neither am I!" 



[53] 



Grenstone 



A PLAYMATE 

PETE'S little arms are wide, 
He runs to us. 
We open ours — 
He laughs ; he is not there. 

We hold a candle by his bed 

To look at him asleep, 

And when we move it near his 

lips. 
Out it goes ! — 



[54] 



Child?' en and 
Death 



DARKNESS 

DARKNESS, when he thought of it, 
Meant to him something he must 
dread. 
And when we left we always lit 
A candle by his bed. 

But now he will not ask for light, 
The candle's little flame is blown; 

And we leave him lying every night 
In darkness of his own. 



iss^ 



Grenstone 



GRASSES 

HE picked us clover leaves and starry grass 
And buttercups and chickweed. One by 
one, 
Smiling he brought them. We can never pass 
A roadside or a hill under the sun 
Where his wee flowers will not return with him, 
His little weeds and grasses, cups that brim 
With sunbeams, leaves grown tender in the dew. 

Come then, O come with us and each in turn, 

Children and elders, let us thread a few 

Of all the daisies; to enfold his urn 

And fade beside this day through which he passes, 

Bringing us clover leaves and starry grasses. 



[56] 



Children and 
Death 



AN OLD ELEGY 

EARTH with flowers on his eyes, 
Be thou as sweet as he — 
Be thou as light where now he lies 
As he was light on thee ! 



[57] 



Grenstone 



POOR RICHARD 

{''What's the use of a new-horn child?''— BENJAMIN FRANKLIN.) 

WHAT'S the use of a new-born child? . , . 
To raise the dead heart?- — to set wild 
The fettered hope? — to comfort sorrow — 
With the old whispering lie: ^'Tomorrow?" 

Whether he take the morrow by the hand 

And disappear with it and come no more- — 

Whether he live, like men before, 

And fail to understand 

And so can only borrow 

From some other new-born child 

That same tomorrow 

He himself had brought when first he smiled — - 

O what's the use of a new-born child? ... 

Poor Richard ! — 

He made his mark in earth and sky, 
But never knew the reason why. 
Neither do ^rou; neither do I. 
Poor Richard! 

[S8] 



Children and 
Death 



CHANGE 

LITTLE white hearse 
Gone down the street — 
If on his bright and unbruised feet 
He should come back 
With life still sweet, 
Only to change to a different hack, 
The little white hearse 
Grown big and black, 
Would it be worse? 



[59] 



Grenstone 



HOSTELRY 

THE doorway opens on a crumbled inn 
Whose windy sign is creaking overhead 
With worms and weather, where a name had 

been, 
Telling the empty title of the dead . . . 

Was he a hard man in his time of gain? 
Or were his cronies costly to his purse? 
Had he a wife? And was she wise or vain? 
Did many mourners follow at his hearse? 

I asked a barefoot girl out in the road 
Silently watching me, conquering her fears, 
To name the host of this antique abode. 
"O, he's been dead," she said, "for years and 
years." 

I asked in Grenstone Village. No one knew. 
I asked the wasted signboard overhead. 
I heard the hinges and the wind that blew, 
Crying the empty title of the dead. 

[60] 



Children and 
Death 

His ledger broken, debt and debtor gone, 
His corner dark with rottenness and rust. 
Somewhere mine host was paying flesh and bone 
To lengthen out his lodging In the dust. 



[6i] 



Grenstone 



GOOD LADS 

GREENLY hid, with drops of red, 
Wild strawberries are sweeter bred 
Among these Grenstone graves and stones 
Than in a field of fewer bones. 

There's many a good lad under clay; 
And I'm not sure but that's the way 
Will keep them young and clean and good 
And happier than living could. 

For let him run or let him read, 
Or lift a flower or fling a weed, 
Or stain his mouth with mortal feast. 
He learns the most who learns the least. 

That many a good lad yet on ground 
Has sought for fair and never found; 
A thing you cannot surely say 
Of good lads lying under clay. 

[62] 



Children and 
Death 



LUCK 

LUCK was the lass he chased, 
Seeking the wide world over, 
But she laughed his love to waste 
With many a lighter lover. 

Now though his life is paid 
And no more shall he love her, 

Luck loves, like any jade, 
One who is careless of her. 

Now where he lies abed 
And never stirs the cover, 

And never turns his head — 
She will not leave her lover. 



[63] 



Grenstone 



JUDD 



<i 



OTHEY were quiet, they were kind 
A month ago to-day, 
The neighbors and the minister — 
And only Judd away ! 



*'He lay beside me thirty years 
And now lies under the snow 
Over which the neighbors drive 
And whistle as they go. 

"It never can be death to them, 
No matter what they say. 
Until they sit alone like me 
And listen to a sleigh." 



[64] 



Children and 
Death 



SINGING PAST THE CEMETERY 

SINGING past the cemetery, 
Flowers In their curls, 
Thinking of their loves and merry, 
Goes a line of girls. 

Grenstone girls are gay and twenty 

On the first of May — 
Grenstone graves are gray and plenty 

Any day. 

But I must not sing of sorrow, 

Lest someone say 
Sorrow's not a thing to borrow 

But to ward away. 

Though Grenstone graves be plain and 
plenty 

On the first of May — 
Yet Grenstone girls are vain and twenty 

Any day. 

[65] 



Grenstone 



THE FARMER 

FARMER PALFREY was a man 
Excellent, wise and sober, 
Whose life in 1812 began 
And ended last October. 

And there's a boy aged 51, 
Reading it upside-down, 
Farmer Palfrey's youngest son, 
The drunkard of the town. 



i66-\ 



Children and 
Death 



THE MINER 

HE'LL never miss his strike, 
For here where he is laid 
He proves all luck alike 
Of common clay is made. 

He's followed many an ore, 
But it's been hit or miss — 
He never turned before 
So sure a dust as this. 



[67] 



Grenstone 



HEIGHO 

WHILE dead men rest, and live men 
rove, 
And moons and mountains come and go, 
Soon as the right hearts cleave in love — 
I am ! — Heigho ! 

A dangling, dear, forbidden sweet — 
A swift, forbidden, conquering blow — - 

A rush of fire from head to feet — 
I will 1 — Heigho ! 

What is the gain for man and wife? 

What is the harvest we shall grow, 
That we must sow the seed of life? 

I know! — Heigho! 

While dead men rest, and live men rove. 
And moons and mountains come and go. 

Soon as the spadefuls close above, 
I was !• — Heigho ! 

[68] 



Children and 
Death 



ENOUGH 

A HILL with little breezes and with me 
Close to its side, holding a book of love 
To lull in tune with tremors of the grove : 
Enough of life, enough of history. 

A field of mortal fragrance from the breath 
Of men soft sunken in the roots of flowers, 
Infinite peace around the troubled hours: 
Enough of mystery, enough of death. 

And then myself to enter in and be 
With hill and field and root, part of the breeze. 
Moss for a violet, sap of the trees: 
Enough of will, enough of destiny. 



[69] 



Grenstone 



NOCTURNE 

SOFT through a mist there's a memory creep- 
ing, 
To tell you in dreams that are wistful and low, 
Soft through the mist between waking and sleep- 
ing— 
Of love as she came to you long, long ago . . , 

Tells you of love as a deathless maiden 

Who plays with a moonbeam and laughs like a 
child . . . 
Her eyes are how full! — and her lashes how 
laden 
With starlight! — her glances how level and 
mild! 

See how her finger-tips fitfully glisten ! 

See with what wonder her forehead is deep ! — 
She breathes, and you tremble . . . she waits, 
and you listen ... 
She waits, and you breathe not . . . she 
breathes . . . and you sleep. 

[70] 



IV, DALLIANCE 



Then sometimes, as we skip along for fun. 
Our shoe-laces and duties come undone. 



Dalliance 



TOMORROW 

WHILE you watch the sad moon, 
Dawn comes unawares, 
With her finger on her lip 

Steals up the stairs, 
With a bird on her shoulder 

Glides up the stairs, 
And sets her bird startling you 
With little green airs . . . 

'^Stop mooning, 
My boy, 
Laugh sorrow 
Away, 
Be tuning 
For joy! 
It's tomorrow — 
Today r 



[73] 



Grenstone 



THE NAUGHTY ANGEL 

THREE churches has Grenstone 
All on one street ; 
Also a graveyard 
Kept very neat, 
Where a vigilant guide 
For the passenger's eye, 
. A maiden of marble. 
Points to the sky. 

The man who designed her 

Had meant her to say: 
"Come, good little children 

Of heaven this way!" — 
But with hand gaily lifted 

And angle all wrong 
She capers and says : 

*'Have some fun I— come along!" 



[74] 



Dalliance 



THE TEN COMMANDMENTS 

HE closed the windows tight all ten, 
Bolted and shuttered them all, 
Lest he should happen to lean on a sill 
And lose his balance and fall. 

He sat In the middle and glibly prayed 
A thankful, mechanical prayer 

And closed his eyes and fell asleep — 
And died for lack of air. 



[75] 



Grenstone 



A 



A WANDERER 

S when a bird alights at sea, 
I found you and you rested me. 



Out of the ocean's infinite foam, 
I found you and I made you home. 

But soon again I wandered free — 
For so a sea-bird loves the sea. 



[76] 



Dalliance 



O, I HAVE SEEN IN GRENSTONE 

OI HAVE seen In Grenstone 
How generous and how fond 
Benedick Is toward every one, 
Before he gives his bond. 

On other days than Christmas 

His good-will apprehends 
A world filled high as bins In the fall 

With golden-hearted friends, 

And on other days than May-day 

He merits and discovers 
A world filled bright as woods In spring 

With unbounded lovers. 

But Benedick once married 
Must lead a straitened life, 

With the world, east, west and 
north and south. 
Bounded by a 

[77] 



Grenstone 



MARRIAGE 

SHALL marriage never be the glory 
That was wooed? — 
But ever enervate and vex, 

Obstruct, intrude, 
And make more wistful and complex 

The solitude, 
Trying to tell the human story 
To its brood? 

No matter how the homes are humming 

In a mood 
Of ecstasy or sentiment 

Or love renewed, 
What eager two can circumvent 

The mortal feud? — 
Till both in one shall die — becoming 

Multitude. 



[78] 



Dalliance 



ONE DAY WHEN I RODE PEGASUS 

SHE caroled on a Grenstone lane, 
She had a song for every tree ; 
They leaned to her and one by one 

They walked with her for company . . . 
I rode behind on Pegasus 

And hoped that she would turn and see. 

How could I wait ? I spurred ahead 
And spied the poems on her cheek 

And begged of her to sing again. 
She only smiled. Perhaps to pique 

The gentleman on Pegasus, 

She only smiled. She would not speak. 

"Tell me but this," I humored her, 
"In all the sadness of the spring, 

The secret of such happiness, 

And I will ride till highroads ring!" 

She said- — her eyes were full of tears — 
"Let me alone and I will sing!" 

[79] 



Grenstone 



THE MIRROR 

O THERE'S hardly a daughter of Eve so 
cold 
That a mirror can't cozen and flatter, 
And her heart grows young that was growing 
old!— 
And what does a wrinkle matter? 

The secret is this, that her vanity leaps 

With a sudden attention, that otherwise sleeps. 

And the best that is in her, matron or lass. 

Is awake like a throb to the heart of the glass. 

Now you have no vanity, none of the art — 
But there's one way I wish you were vain ! 

Why don't you happen to look in my heart? — • 
And like it and look there again? 



[80] 



Dalliance 



THE SECRET 

TAKING women as they come, 
I like them better as they go"- 
That was what I used to say 
And smile to have it so. 

Liking women as they went, 

That was the way I wisely chose 

Why I asked one not to go — 
God only knows. 



[8i] 



Grenstone 



THE COQUETTE 

SHE loves me and she loves me not, 
According to her whim; 
For when another's on the spot 
Her love is all for him. 

But IVe been told a double cure : 

I'll simply let her be 
And care no more, until I'm sure 

Her love is all for me. 

And then I'll care enough to say, 
*'Go and love him and him ! 

For I but loved you yesterday — 
According to your whim." 

But first I'll give her one more chance 

To prove her constancy, 
For, O, I know it by her glance, 

Her love is all for me! 

[82] 



Dalliance 



THE SKEPTIC 

WHAT shall I do, who may not be 
Beside you nor away? 
Away I crave you, but, dear me, 
I doubt you if I stay — 

Yes, doubt you with your equal eyes 
Of knowledge and of youth — 

Your lovely wonders must be lies . . . 
And yet they may be truth I 

Too hopeful not to come and see, 

Too skeptical to stay. 
What shall I do who may not be 

Beside you nor away! 



[83] 



Grenstone 



A BALLAD OF UNDAUNTED YOUTH 

AS soon as I could stammer 
I opened on the day. 
For often Is adventure 

Begun in just that way — 
Then I held my breath and listened 
To hear what she might say. 

She lived in a Grenstone farmhouse, 
Its chimney-top just showed ... 

We went to It by pasture. 

Which was farther than by road; 

Said Helen, "You may board there"— 
A beating heart's abode ! 

Her hand was bright at breakfast. 

And sunlight on her head 
I clearer saw at dinner 

Than the butter on my bread. 
And evenings, like a deaf man, 

I heard her go to bed. 

[84] 



Dalliance 



I might have spent my money 
And my heart there half a year, 

For this daughter of her father 
Became so shrewdly dear 

That I drew her never nearer, 
Though she was ever near. 

She would not mend my yearning, 
She would not break my heart. 

She would not let me clasp her 
As a death-struck moth will dart 

Into consuming brightness 
Till breath and body part. 

So I made a formal offer. 

And she answered that she knew 
She was likely to be asked for 

By suitors not a few — 
An answer Inoffensive, 

But discouraging and true. 

Wanly I thought about it, 

Two weeks went by In gloom. 
I refused to climb the mountain 

[85] 



Grenstone 



With the rest, or leave my room^ — 
Where I thought of only Helen, 
Her brightness and her bloom . . 

Yet when to-day I saw her 

Wandering hand in hand 
With a foolish farmer-fellow, 

I could not understand 
How features in a fortnight 

Could grow so dull and bland . . , 

Not Helen but her father 

Is the person I prefer. 
Who talks to us at evening — 

The nation's arbiter. 
And though Helen often comments, 

We never notice her. 

But when Jean, the quiet sister 

And exquisite though shy. 
Offers a thoughtful question, 

We always make reply . . . 
And I watch Jean in her corner — 

The corner of my eye. 
[86] 



Dalliance 



WORLD'S END 

IN spite of Grenstone, men will roam, 
Such men as Hercules — 
But there are orchards nearer home 
Which are Hesperides. 

Where can the whole world farther lie 
Than where these branches are 

That daily clasp a bit of sky 
And nightly a star? 

Plucking gold fruit and great renown, 
Would that be better labor 

Than borrowing apples red and brown 
From an unacquainted neighbor? . . 

O, where I lie adventure lies ! 

And see 1 — a farmer's wagon 
Conveys at last before my eyes 

The daughters of the dragon. 

[87] 



Gr ens tone 



And Jean, the lovelier of the two, 
Shall seek among the trees — 

O, never doubt that I shall do 
As well as Hercules ! 



[88] 



Dalliance 



THE OLD MILL 

I HAD tried for a kiss and been treated with 
scorn, 
For Jeanie had seemed to see sin In my wish; 
But, never a fellow for staying forlorn, 
I had tried to forget It and fish. 

Just below the old mill, where nobody goes 
But one who has need of a healing shade. 
Of a leaf and a bird and the flickering flows 
In a brook — and of never a maid — 

I was borne like a leaf, in a mournful dream, 
And was touching a shadowy bank of noon, 
When I started upright and I stared overstream, 
For I heard a voice laughing a tune. 

O, sudden to see, in the water's way. 
Came Jean, a twinkle of sun on her face, 
And wet to the ankle uttered, "Good-day," 
With her daily composure and grace ! 

[89] 



Grenstone 

And under a willow that shivers and dips 
I ran and we met in the midst of the brook, 
And so she forgave by the touch of her lips- 
And so what I wanted I took. 



[90] 



Dalliance 



A MOMENT 

TIME, I caught it, fluttering time, 
I caught it in my net. 
Its two wings were the perfect rhyme— 
And O, I have it yet 
Where it cannot fly nor climb . . . 
The golden pin is set I 



[91] 



Grenstone 



SUN AND MOON 

WHEN we met where apple-boughs 
Leaned to lure a lover's vows, 
When the tiniest apple-bud 
Was a signal for the blood 
To tingle in the finger-tip 
Or the cheek or the lip, 
When we felt all nature move 
For a final beat of love — 
Then the sun rose up to look 
Dimly, softly through the trees, 
And advised us in the breeze 
To be iron, to deny. 
Tell me, Jean, O tell me why, 
When every little bird made fun 
Of that whispering of the sun, 
Why we still should give it heeding 
And refuse each other's pleading, 
Turn from each and each forsake 
And almost let our two hearts break? . . 

^'Dearl — before the sun's new rising, 
Is there not a moon advising?" 

[92] 



Dalliance 



IN LOVE 

TO a star cried a starling 
"I want to get out 
Of this cage all about, 
O, I want to get out, 
Boo-hoo!" 

But said I to my darling: 
"This cage all about 
Has us in beyond doubt. 
But who wants to get out! 
Do you?" 



[93] 



Grenstone 



YOUNG EDEN 

FLUSHED from an orchard flagon, 
My country-love and I 
Sat by a tree, forgetting 
Old conscience and his fretting, 
Watched, where the sun was setting, 
Trouble trundle by — 
Like some old dragon 
Loaded on a wagon 
Drawn against the sky. 

Fol de rol de raly 0/ 
Trouble in the sky! 

I pointed out a dangling claw; 
She knew it was only a cloud I saw, 

But she let me say my say — 
For the day, red-ripe, was a pretty day 
And she thought my way was a city way . . . 
And she knew I liked to have her think- — while 
each unhindered curl 

[94] 



Dalliance 

Glinted in the sunlight, hinted of its yellow — 
That I who talked to such a girl 
Was something of a fellow. 

Fol de rol de raly 0/ 
Was she really thinking so? 

"There's the tree," I gaily told her, 
"Come, before we're one day older! 

Apples, apples, at our feet. 

We shall gather, we shall eat! 
Now's the time for apple hunger — 
Not if we were one day younger, 
Younger, older, shyer, bolder. 

Would an apple taste so sweet!" 

Fol de rol de raly 0/ 
Apples at our feet! 

Bewildered, she was with me on the run 

Toward the tree that held its treasure to the sun; 

This, of all the trees of treasure, was the one 

Condemning leisure. 

One inviting lovely pleasure — 
She was with me, she was by me on the run. 
With a cheek that turned its treasure to the sun. 

[95] 



Grenstone 

Fol de rol de raly Of 
Raly O, we gaily go, 
Fol— 

Why should she stop and never speak? 
Why should the color In her cheek 
Change— not glowing gay, but meek? — 
Deeper, redder than I knew, 
She was mistress of, a hue, 
Though demurely, 
Richly, surely 
Rising In her cheek! 

Fol de rol de raly O! 
The change in her cheek! 

There before us on the ground. 

Eyes upon us, not a sound. 

Sat a runaway, a girl of seven years. 

Her lap was full of sunny gold, 
But her eyes In the sun, her eyes were old, 
Were sober, seeming laden — 
And such a little maiden-- 
Unawares but laden 
With some dead woman's tears. 

[96] 



Dalliance 

Fol de rol de raly 0/ 
A child of seven years! 

Some woman who had watched and wept, 
But had no living speech, 
Watched and wept now within that little breast. 
Caught and caressed 
Those little hands and would have kept 

Beyond their reach 
The anguish in that orchard, 
The apple-bough unblessed, 
The brightness that has tortured 
The heart within the breast . . . 
And we beheld, can see it even now, 
A bent and withered apple-bough 

Of beauty dispossessed, 
Which bore a bane from long ago — 
Yet seemed to us, who wished it so, 
To bear the orchard's best ... 
It was the bough that leaves no rest 
To the heart within the breast. 

Fol de rol de raly O! 

This heart within the breast! 

[97] 



Grenstone 

Abashed and parting on our ways, 
We saw that woman's helpless hand 
Cease from making its demand 

And ghostly fade and sad ... 
We saw the child, forgetful of our gaze, 
Laughing like any child that plays, 

Laughing in any land. 
Lean and touch a toy she had 

Half-hidden in her hand. 
We saw her pat and poise and raise— 

An apple in her hand! 

Fol de vol de raly 0/ 

The apple in her hand! . . . 

Yet youth came back again among the trees 

To find an apple of its own — 
What good are warnings given men 

To let that tree alone 
And when were women ever known 

To do but as they please? 
And so we two came back again, 

As though we had not known . . . 

Fol de vol de raly 0/ 
For an apple of our own! 

[98] 



Dalliance 



BLOW HOT, BLOW COLD 

LAST night or several nights ago, 
In moontime it is hard to be pre- 
cise, 
The twilight was a down of snow, 
The moon a blade of ice. 
But we were warm. 

Tonight the overflowing moon 
Has poured its mist and made the 

valley swim 
Through silent lengths of a lagoon. 
Warm and deep and dim. 
But we are cold. 



[99] 



Grenstone 



BATTLES LONG AGO 

I WAS a god of battles then 
And governed as I chose 
The fortunes of my metal men 
And conquered all my foes. 

But now, no longer safe outside 
Like that almighty elf, 

I have forgotten how to guide 
Myself against myself ! 



[ 100 1 



Dalliance 



THE SEEKER 

THE Idiot came with a bobbing pace ; 
And when I passed her by, 
She raised her head as If to face 
Asylums In the sky. 

I looked, I stopped, I said good-day, 

I asked her what she found. 
Like stone, she would not move nor say 

A word nor make a sound . . . 

Till suddenly upon her track 

She turned, no longer dumb. 
And, answering, went ambling back 

The road that she had come. 

She moaned, "Dear me, I've lost the way. 

Forgotten It again !" 
I wondered If I ought to say, 

*'So, madam, have all men." 

[lOl] 



Grenstone 



GOD'S FOOL 



u 




NCE I fell asleep !— 
And lost a child. 
At first I stopped to weep, 

But now the wild 
Nights know me, how I keep 

The signs compiled . . . 
And the first time God's asleep, 
I'll find the child!" 



[ 102] 



Dalliance 



TREASURE 

A SHIP came in one colored day- 
Through raui and sun. 
The rainbow waited in the bay — 
The wealth was won. 

Reaching at last the treasure-pot, 

The golden hoard, 
A ship came in . . . but there was not 

A soul aboard. 



[ 103 I 



Grenstone 



THE RIDER 

I'VE a galloping heart that can never stay still. 
But must hurry away and be over a hill — 
Though there's nothing to find there but sunset or 

rain, 
O the beat of the hoofs of my heart again ! . . . 
Ho for the stirrups and who shall say stop 
Till I look on the sea from a mountain-top ! 

I've a limping heart that has gone all day, 

A heart that has worn its breath away, 

And every stone in the path is a pain— 

O the drag of the hoofs of my heart again. 

Limping, limping, and not any rest. 

And the mountain still far up in the west I 



[ 104 ] 



Dalliance 



THE HEART OF GOLD 

1HAD a heart as good as gold 
For spending or for buying; 
It bought me many a hand to hold 
And many a breath for sighing. 

It bought me many a mouth to kiss, 

And many a secret token — 
O, what's the good of all of this» 

Now when my heart is broken? 

My heart that once, as good as gold. 
Bought anything that mattered 

Is like a tale completely told, 

Like golden money scattered . . . 

But somewhere there's a heart so young 
It still can spare for spending, 

Will sing the song that I have sung, 
Beginning with my ending. 

[105] 



Grenstone 




ONCE OF ALL MY FRIENDS 

NCE of all my friends and cronies 
First was my own heart and best, 
But aggrieved my heart rebuked me 
And I broke it in my breast. 

Now my body laughs and offers 

Any sum I bid it lend; 
And I borrow and I borrow — 

And I spend and I spend. 



[io6] 



Dalliance 



THE DEAD LOON 

THERE is a dead loon in the camp to-night 
killed by a clever fool, 
And down the lake a live loon calling. 
The wind comes stealing, tall, muscular and cool, 
From his plunge where stars are falling — • 

The wind comes creeping, stalking, 

On his night-hidden trail, 

Up to the cabin where we sit playing cards and 

talking. 
And only I, of them all, listen and grow pale. 

He glues his face to the window, addressing only 

me, 
Talks to me of death and bids me hark 
To the hollow scream of a loon and bids me see 
The face of a clever fool reflected in the dark. 

That dead loon is farther on the way than we are. 
It has no voice with which to answer while we 

wait. 
But it is with me now and with the evening star . . , 
Its voice is my voice and its fate my fate. 

[ 107] 



Grenstone 



I 



OBLIVION 

HEAR his claws In the bark 
Crawling up the tree of life- 
I throw him all I have. 



[io8] 



V. WISDOM AND UNWISDOM 



How we resolve and reason and explain 

The various ways we take the sun and rain! 



Wisdom and 
Unwisdom 



BEAUTY 

OUT of the deep August night slips an ar- 
rowy moment, 
A shooting-star, 
And, as if that one change 
Had once more set the firmament in motion, 
I with the bright breath of a poem 
Slipping to me from the zenith 
Find that I must have wound the clock of heaven 

without knowing, 
For I can hear it striking 
And the north pole and the south pole echoing in 

unison 
And glaciers scampering away from the sound 

like rabbits — 
And I smile higher and higher 
With the key. 



[Ill] 



Grenstone 



TO YOURSELF 

TALKING to people In well-ordered ways is 
prose, 
And talking to them in well-ordered ways or in 

disordered outbreak may be poetry. 
But talking to yourself, out on a country road, no 

houses and no hedges to conceal a listener. 
Only yourself and heaven and the trees and a wind 

and a linnet; 
Talking to yourself in those long breaths that sing 

or hum or whistle fullness of the heart, 
Or the short breaths, 
Beats of the heart. 

Whether it be of sadness or a haystack, 
Mirth or the smell of the sea, 
A cloud or luck or love. 
Any of these or none — 
Is poetry. 



[112] 



PFisdoni and 
Unwisdom 



TO MYSELF 

1 SPOKE aloud, as a poet should, 
What a wise man ought to say, 
And, though I knew that it was good. 
People turned away. 

Then to myself I breathed a word 
Which I could not understand, 

And in a twinkling people heard 
And took me by the hand. 

And by that simple touch of hand 

They answered my intent, 
And I did not have to understand 

Exactly what I meant. 



[113] 



Grenstone 



THE NEW LIFE 

lERHAPS they laughed at Dante in his youth, 
Told him that truth 
Elad unappealably been said 
In the great masterpieces of the dead. 
Perhaps he listened and but bowed his head 
In acquiescent honor, while his heart 
Held natal tidings that a new life is the part 
Of every man that's born, 
A new life and a new expectant art. 
It Is the variations of the morn 
That are forever, more and more, 
The single dawning of the single truth . . . 
So answers Dante to the heart of youth. 



[114] 



Wisdom and 
Unwisdom 



WISDOM 



o 



LD man, If I only knew 
A quick way to be wise like you ! 



*'Young man, this Is all I know 
To im.part before I go : 
You must keep your goal in sight, 
Labor toward It day and night, 
Then at last arriving there — 
You shall be too old to care." 

You would even wiser be. 

Old man, were you young like me. 



[115] 



Grenstone 




FOLLY 

Y sense Is in my lack of It — 
The world must have its fool — 
Let others bear the pack of it 
In palace, church and school, 
While, watchful In my wandering heart 
And steadfast In my folly, 
I come upon a court, apart 
From all their melancholy ... 



Kingdom, but not by track of It, 
Entrance, but not by rule. 
Where the gold Is In the lack of It 
And the crown Is for the fool — 
Where, for music, I need only move 
And hear the praises ring 
From every little bell I love, 
Addressing me as king! 



[ii6] 



Wisdom and 
Unwisdom 



A SAIL 

HEARING them snarl over bones 
Down yonder, 
I will listen fonder 
To the brawl that stones 
Make in a brook, 
Or lower my head 
To the smile of the dead 
In a quiet old book. 



And I shall wander 

Wherever I must 

And trust 

In the world, but not ponder 

Nor dig golden gravel 

To bury my face — 

But from place to green place 

I shall travel. 

[117] 



Grenstone 



What use 

Is the hardness of money 

Compared to soft honey? 

It had much bettei* go to the deuce !■ 

I shall sweeten my lips, on the va- 
grant trail, 

With berry and fruit-bearing tree, 

Till I come to the edge of the sea — 
And a sail! 



[ii8] 



Wisdom and 
Unwisdom 



A GRENSTONE GLADE 

ON the way 
To a Grenstone glade 
Yesterday 
I met a maid 
Who was raven-dark, 
And I listened to her ditty; 
For the maid was very 

pretty — 
So hark! — 

"M^wy things 
Show us how 
Love brings 
Women woeF^ 

On the way 

From a Grenstone glade 
I met to-day 
Another maid; 

[119] 



Grenstone 



She was yellow-fair; 

And I listened to her ditty; 

For the maid had very pretty 

Longhair: 

^'Little ghosts 
Whisper how 
Love costs 
Women woeF^ 

So they'll sing; 
Though they'll mean 
Not a thing 
That they sing, 
Till they come 
To their own 
And are dumb 
And alone. 



[120] 



Wisdom and 
Unwisdom 



TO NO ONE IN PARTICULAR 

LOCATE your love, you lose your love; 
Find her, you look away . . . 
Though mine I never quite discern, 
I trace her every day. 

She has a thousand presences, 

As surely seen and heard 
As birds that hide behind a leaf 

Or leaves that hide a bird. 

Single your love, you lose your love, 
You cloak her face with clay; 

Now mine I never quite discern — 
And never look away. 



[121] 



Grenstone 



BE NOT TOO FRANK 

E not too frank, if you would reach 
A woman's heart, be not too kind 
Nor too severe, but keep your speech 
And all your manners uninclined. 

Assert but briefly self-control ; 
Then watch her come to you intent 
To give direction to your soul 
And make indifference different. 



[ 122] 



JVtsdom and 
Unwisdom 



THE NEW LOVE 

CONTENT beneath a lulling tree 
That I and crickets know, 
To keep awake, I count the birds ; 
They twitter to and fro. 

You think no girl could ever love 

So dull a lad as this? 
You never knew a neater girl 

Than one I used to kiss. 

And yet I did not dally long. 
Nor want her here with me : 

The sun and I are keeping tryst — 
And why should we be three? 



[ 123] 



Gr ens tone 



THE BALANCE 

LOSE your heart, you lose the maid; 
It's the humor of her kind. 
So trim the balance to a shade; 
Keep your heart and keep the maid I 

Keep your heart, you keep the maid, 
But yourself you cannot find . . . 
Fling the balance unafraid ! 
Find your heart — and lose the maid ! 



[124] 



VL—THE OLD CRY 



And in the very midst of explanation, 
We cry the single cry of all creation. 



The Old Cry 



CAPTURE 

A LITHE, dark-bodied fisher-boy, naked in 
the sea, 
One warm spring morning early, swimming far 

out, caught his breath. 
Not from a rush of the sea, but from a quick, 

bright-bodied girl 
Who, laughing westward toward him, skimmed 

the waves with her white feet. 
He could not cleave the water, it was iron at his 

breast, 
But he struck and broke the coiling chains and 

scattered them aside 
And headlong followed her in the foam, and his 

lips were salt and sang 
Of her beauty. Plunging ashore where she had 

vanished in the woods, 
Seizing his net as though it were his love to cover 

her, 
He watched her where she was running, lighting 

the trunks of trees that she passed, 
[ 127 ] 



Grenstone 

And he gained on her, drew nearer, and the chase 

was so swift 
That over many hills and valleys he had followed 

her. 
And the wave was not yet dry on his body, and 

the net he bore 
Had not ceased dripping. Then he cast the net, 

a silver maze, 
And captured her, a rose of dew. I saw her stop 

and sway. 
For I had roused when they went by, and I heard 

her say to him. 
Out on my hilltop, laughing, ''I am the morning- 
sun. And you?" 
"I am the morning-sea," he answered and he held 

her close. 
They clung together breathless on the rim. It 

was the dawn. 



[128] 



The Old Cry 



YOUTH 

1CARE not what you bring to me, 
I care not what you take . . . 
Be nothing else but only young 

And — though my heart shall break- 
Be nothing else but only young 
And hear me call you hither, 
And count on me to age and die 
Before your youth shall wither! 



[ 129 ] 



Grenstone 




A PRAYER FOR BEAUTY 

IVE her such beauty of body and mind 
As the leaves of an aspen tree 
When they vary from silver to green in the wind, 

And who shall be lovely as she — 
Then give her the favor of harking to love 

As the heart of a wood to the call of a dove ! — 
And give her the beauty of following free 
As a cloud in the sky or a wave in the sea ! 

Give her such purity vivid with light 

As the wonder of passion can be, 
Aware in the day and rapt in the night, 

And none shall be lovely as she ! — 
O, give her the fortune a lover may find 

In the sharing of beauty of body and mind. 
The paramount beauty of giving, that she 

Shall immortally give it ! — But give her to me ! 



[ 130] 



The Old Cry 



A LANE IN GRENSTONE 

THE lane at night is dimly lit 
Through many a deepening tree, 
And few there are who travel it, 
And none of them with me. 

But there's a step I cannot learn, 

A foot I cannot trace. 
Which follows me at every turn 

With faint familiar pace. 

Perhaps forgotten time ago 

I wandered here content 
With one I shall not fully know 

Till all the years are spent. 

With someone who was kind to me . . . 

But only this is clear: 
I wish that she would let me see 

Her face and be my dear. 

[131] 



VII. CELIA 



And Oj how suddenly the cry rings true. 
Changing, no longer saying I — but You! 



Celia 



CELIA 

FROM the lane I turn to look, 
Till my eyes are cool with seeing 
Bright before me comes a brook 
Out of branches into being. 

And behind me, while I turn, 
Follows the familiar pace . . . 

Till, at last, I look and learn — 
Seeing Celia face to face. 

Out of whispers of concealment, 
Like the brook, my Celia slips. 

Bringing me the dear revealment — 
For I ask her, and her lips 

Tell me that where leaves were green 
Close beside her often moved 

Some one she had never seen, 
Some one she had always loved. 

[135] 



Grenstone 



THE EARLY GODS 

T is the time of violets. 
It is the very day 
When In the shadow of the wood 

Spring shall have her say, 
Remembering how the early gods 

Came up the violet way. 
Are there not violets 
And gods — 

To-day? 



[136] 



Celia 



INTERPRETER 

WHEN people with their dollars 
And their propriety 
Would tighten like high collars 

Around the neck of me, 
I used to journey out by train 

And tramp good miles of mud 
To find the world set right again 
In some spring leaf or bud. 

But now I need not wander 

Remotely from my kind, 
For I should carry yonder 

But Celia in my mind. 
And is it sensible, finding a tree 

Pleasanter than faces? — 
When she combines humanity 

With all the woodland places. 



[ 137] 



Grenstone 



SEAS AND LEAVES 

THEY had told me of you, of your beauty, 
But I was skeptical and shook my head. 
Beauty was empty, I had proven; I had followed 

every beckon of It. 
Traversed the world of it, touched all its ports 
And — having touched them all and come away 

again' — I was uncomforted ... 
"There is no beauty," I believed and said, 
"But at the vessel's prow. 
Only the foam is beautiful 
That flies before the voyage and Is gone." 

They had told me of you, of your wisdom, 

But I was wiser still and shook my head. 

For I had listened, both In city and in country, 

On farms, at funerals. 

And under trees and over wine and through the 

touch of hands. 
To people wise In all variety; 
But none of them, not one, 

[138] 



Celia 



Had brought me wisdom to unwind the years 

And make a fair beginning toward some end . . . 

"There Is no wisdom," I believed and said, 

"But in the ship's wake 

Where the waves 

Cover their noise again with the great sea." 

But I have seen you, 

And have heard you speak — 

Have seen the rippling seas glance in your face 

And In your mouth have heard the rippling leaves 

Consult together. 



[ 139 1 



Grenstone 



IN MANY STREETS • 

THE day is over and I have not seen you; 
You are away from Grenstone . . . 

And when I walked your street awhile, 
I knew that other men were passing you, 
Not seeing you, not heeding you — 
Blinder than I had long been to your beauty 
And deafer than I to your wisdom . . . 

Just as I pass life, 
Unknown to me. 
In many streets. 



[ 140] 



Celia 



YES 

HOW every sun shone quicker, every flame, 
And every starbeam stirred 
When you received me, when you said my name 
And then the radiant word! 

Invisible, tremendous, comes the night, 

Eternity . . . 
But I can pierce It with enough of light 

To seel 



[141] 



Grenstone 



THE TOUCH OF YOU 

AT the touch of you, 
As if you were an archer with your swift 
hand at the bow, 
The arrows of delight shot through my body . . 

You were spring 

And I the edge of a cliff — 

And a shining waterfall rushed over me. 



[ 142] 



Cclia 



ON EARTH 

IT is not that your winding hair 
Is blown, but that the winds are there . . 
O, let me lean my throat to feel 
Those fainting breaths of summer steal 
Into a calm — then gather fast 
And rise into a lightning-blast ! 

It is not that your breast is bare, 

But the heart of life is beating there . . . 

O, let me lean my head and hark 

To love instead of any lark! — 

What worth has heaven's highest bird 

When this upon the earth is heard? 



[143] 



Grenstone 



ROSE-TIME 

WHAT though love require no test, 
In this rose-time after rain 
Let me touch your hand again I — 
Since caressing reassures 
Lovers that their love endures, 
Now, whatever dark may come, 
Now, before our mouths are dumb, 
While away the twilight slips— 
Celia, let me kiss your lips! ... 
Until dawn shall be as blue 
As the little veins of you 
At the temple and the breast 



[ 144] 



Cell a 



CHARIOTS 

1 NEVER saw the morning till to-day; 
I never knew how soon night went away- 
Day merely came a regular event; 
Night merely went . . . 

Now day and night are chariots for me, 
Since I have learned their mystery from you: 
Day holding one and moving solemnly — 
Night holding two. 



[145] 



Grenstone 



WHEN THE FIRST BIRD SANG 

I LOVED you, loved you, with your unseen 
eyes 
Sweet to my lips in nearnesses of night, 
Sweet to my fingers that were trembling light 
Upon your face to prove my true surmise 
Of eyes that opened, witnessing with mine. 
There had not been a sign nor ray of sight. 
But only love to prompt my guess aright ! . . . 
Then dawn revealed you slowly line by line. 

At first I held away your dreaming face 
From my face. Till the dark-blue light was keen. 
Still, still I held it — though my passion beat 
For it. And then all heaven on that place 
Came down, since nothing ever to be seen 
Again could hide your eyes, so wild, so sweet! 



[146] 



Celia 



SAPPHICS FOR CELIA 

(Echoing the Greek) 

^JVEETER than a harp is the voice of 
^ Sappho ... 

Let me swing the door to the living garden—^ 
Let me lead you, Celia, where Sappho wanders 
Singing forever. 



Long ago I dreamed, as a little fellow, 
Dreams of rosy girls who were scornful of me, 
Dreams of being mighty to win them over, 
Making them like me. 



I remember later, in lusty boyhood. 
Seeing certain faces indifferent toward me 
Soften, turn and offer themselves for kisses, 
Even unwilHng. 

[147] 



Grenstone 

Now, O dreams and passions, I need your 

magic . . . 
I have found a woman to love In terror, 
Terror lest at last I be unavailing, 
Loving too deeply. 



II 

I believe this miracle cannot happen: 
Any woman ever be born to sunlight 
With a gift of wisdom, of exquisite wisdom, 
Equal to Cella's . . . 

I believe that, hearing to-day her laughter 
Lighter than a harp, is to hear it always. 
In my spirit's house there cari be from henceforth 
No lamentation. 



Ill 

Love IS In her lips as in apple blossoms 
Creeps a wind, and love Is upon her fingers, 
Faint and subtle zephyr as ever followed 
Leaves that were trembling. 

[148] 



Celia 

IV 

He becomes a god who has felt her pres- 
ence . . . 
Proof forever answering all the questions 
Whether man shall die in his earthy stature, 
Never be god-like. 

Made divine by even a moment of her, 
My two arms can reach till they touch the heav- 
ens ... 
Yet I stand swept dry of my life, like white-burnt 
Grass in the summer. 



Many stars which once I beheld in heaven, 
Stars that shone with each an especial brightness, 
Lose their fading gleam in a larger glory — 
Celia, the moonlight. 

VI ^ 

Love is good and never a thing to darken, 
Not a thing to hide in a glance or whisper — 
If his love be true and if she return It, 
Then she should tell me ! . . . 

[ 149 ] 



Grenstone 

Not my Celia's voice but her sllenee answers: 
She has only mercy for me who doubt her, 
Only laughing patience for my reproaches . . . 
I am contented. 



For I see her face, and forget all others, 
Shine on only me with restoring heaven . . . 
I am strong again ... as an oak encounters 
Wind on a mountain. 



VII 

First the moon went down and the night was 

empty. 
Then the Pleiades and the night was empty. 
Then the sun came up and the dawn was 

empty . . . 
No one beside me. 



Now the moon has risen again in fullness, 
Marble-white, a temple of consecration. 
What a night to witness the seal of marriage I 
O, what an altar! 

[150] 



Celia 

Fools who never loved, Is the night approaching? 
Is there In the darkness a breath of roses? — 
Go, then, bloom In love and forever after 
Sweeten the darkness I 



Sweet is blown in darkness the bloom of 

Sappho. . . . 
Through the gate that szvlngs to her living garden 
We have entered^ Celia, where Sappho wanders 
Singing forever. 



[151] 



Grenstone 



ENCOUNTER 

YOURS IS a presence lovelier than death — 
Heavy with blossoms, poignant of the sea ! 
The dead are magical, but O, your breath 
Has given more than lordly death to me . . . 
I am your lover and a cloud is my crest. 
The headland is my chariot, my waves go four 
abreast. 

Let me be fleet and sunlit in your sight 
A little while, before I charge and drown . . . 
Then, O my love, who have so lavished might 
On me that I would strike mortality down. 
When in the end I fall, trampled by the sea, 
Slain by my horses — -I shall know your blossoms 
blinding me. 



[152] 



Celia 



A TENT-SONG 

TILL we watch the last low star, 
Let us love and let us take 
Of each other all we are. 

On some morning with that star 
One of us shall lie awake, 
Lonely for the other's sake. 



[ 153] 



Grenstone 



UNDER THE MOUNTAIN 

UNDER the mountain is a lovely face, 
Under the face a heart! 
I have come back again to my own place . 

But soon I shall depart 
Far from the mountain and the face, 
Far from the heart. 



[154] 



Celia 



A SHEPHERD OF STARS 



Y 



ESTERDAY 

I could say — 



Stars are my sheep. Nobody clips 
Gain of my shepherding. 

The air comes cool upon my lips 
Like water from a spring, 

And out I stretch my finger-tips 
And count my flock and sing: 

*'Come, graze beside me on my hill, 
You little starry sheep — 

Gather and eat your silver fill 
And call me out of sleep 

To trace you by your silver trill, 
To fold you In my keep." 

Except myself, nobody cares 
How many I shall bring — 
Save Celia. And no other dares 

[155] 



Gr ens tone 



To steal them while I sing . . . 
Yet toward a world of common wares 
The wind is beckoning: 

*'0, come and leave your silly sheep 
That wander up and down, 

That cannot even earn their keep, 
O, come to town, to town! 

A countryman is counted cheap, 
A shepherd is a clown !" 

Stars are my sheep. Nobody knows 

How often in the fold 
I enter with them when it snows 

And cannot feel the cold — 
And yet it seems a wise man goes 

Where wool and meat are sold. 

And today 
I must say — ■ 

*'0 starry sheep, good-by, good-by — 
Your shepherd goes to town ! 
But never one of you shall die 

To clothe and feed the clown — 
For you shall keep my hill, while I 
Shall wander up and down." 

[156] 



II. AWAY FROM GRENSTONE 



/. AN INLAND CITY 



After the voice I had always waited for^ 
O how can there be distance any moref 



An Inland City 



MY CITIZEN 

IF I were In the country now, 
There'd be the roads and hills, 
The grasses under sky and bough, 
The brooks and straying rills, 
Where I might come and find a trace, 
In every field, of one dear face. 

Here In the city are but bars 
To memories and traces, 
Where in the streets and In the cars 
I see a thousand faces . . . 
And yet when all Is said and done, 
In a thousand faces I see one. 



[i6i] 



Away from 
Grenstone 



NO MAN'S CLERK 

PERHAPS tomorrow he will work 
Listlessly again — 
This evening he was no man's clerk 
He was a king of men. 

An unheroic, homely boy, 

Sallow and under size, 
He passed me, bearing all the joy 

Of history in his eyes. 

I saw him then, I see him yet, 

The funny little churl. 
In his mouth a cigarette. 

In his eyes — ^a girl. 



[162] 



An Inland City 



ONE OF THE CROWD 

I LONGED, in the woodland yesterday, 
To see the fauns come out and play, 
To see a satyr try to seize 

A dryad's waist — and bark his knees, 
To see a river-nymph waylay 
And shock him with a dash of spray ! — 
And I teased, like a child, by brooks and trees, 
"Come back again ! We need you ! Please 
Come back and teach us how to play!" 
But nowhere in the woods were they. 

I found, when I went in the town to-day 

A thousand people on their way 
To offices and factories — 

And never a single soul at ease; 
And how could I help but sigh and say, 

"What can it profit them, how can it pay 
To strain the eye with rivalries 

Until the dark is all it sees? — 
Or to manage, more than others may, 

To store the wasted gain away?" 

[163] 



Away from 
Grenstone 

But one of the crowd looked up to-day, 
With pointed brows. I heard him say, 
''Out of the meadows and rivers and trees 

We fauns and many companies 
Of nymphs have come. And we are these, 

These people, each upon his way, 
Looking for work, working for pay — • 

And paying all our energies 
To earn true love . . . for, seeming gay, 

We fauns were sad," I heard him say. 



[164] 



An Inland City 



WITH A COPY OF "A SHROPSHIRE LAD" 



I 



SEND to you a Shropshire lad, 

Who's half-way gay and half-way sad 



He whistles of the lasting sleep 

A melody to hear and keep, 

Beguiling you the little while 

You've need to sigh and chance to smile, 

And whistles next of happy things 
That each unhappy waking brings. 
Until you've half forgotten why 
You've need to smile and chance to sigh. 

You'll find him always, gay or sad, 
A friendly little Shropshire lad. 



[165] 



Away from 
Grenstone 



A JUSTICE REMEMBERS LINCOLN 

OU said: 



Y 



"He was not a gentleman. 
But he dropped Into my oiSce one day, 
As politicians did when they came to town, 
And in my rocking-chair 
Eased his long legs 
And crossed his shins 
And settled down. 

*'My partners noted shrewdness in him 
And laughed when his large loose lips 
Rolled and relished the ends of stories 
Like the ends of cigars, 
But for me the cigar-stubs were vile. 
All my ancestors rose in me against him, 
And I said to them in my soul, 
'It is the penalty. 

It is what comes of politics in a republic' 
[i66] 



Alt Inland City 

"After some years I awoke one morning 
And said to the ancestors In my soul, 
'It Is the end, 

The end of the republic' — 
For I knew that morning, 
With a mortal sickness of pity for my 

countrymen, 
That they had elected, as their president 

for four years. 
The vulgarian — 
Abraham Lincoln. 

"And he went on in the White House, 
Even into a second term, 
Lolling his legs, 
And applying his shrewdness, 
And telling his stories. 
And being judged. 

*'And then he was shot and buried . . . 

"And after a few years, 
By another President, 

[167] 



Away from 
Grenstone 



A gentleman, 

I was appointed to a seat for life 

In the Supreme Court of the United States," 

Yoii smiled. 



[i68] 



An Inland City 



HOBBLEDEHOY 

HOBBLEDEHOY, neither man nor boy, 
With a burden of pain and a purpose of 

With a heart and a hunger of God's alloy, 
He's a lad whom the jungle and heaven decoy. 
There's God and the devil In Hobbledehoy! 

What shall we do when Hobbledehoy, 
With the zest of a beast to possess or destroy, 
Is tripped In his track for the hunting of joy? 
What shall we do when the beast in the boy 
Calls out to the devil in Hobbledehoy? 

Shall we punish the nature of Hobbledehoy, 
Cage and encourage it forth to destroy? — > 
Or quicken the pain In him, quicken the joy. 
The pang of the birth of the man from the boy! — 
Shall we give him the devil? — Hobbledehoy? 



[169] 



Away from 
Grenstone 



THE POET 

A POET lived in Galilee, 
Whose mother dearly knew him — 
And his beauty like a cooling tree 
Drew many people to him. 

He loved the speech of simple men 
And little children's laughter, 

He came — they always came again. 
He went — they followed after. 

He had sweet-hearted things to say, 

And he was solemn only 
When people were unkind . . . that day 

He'd stand there straight and lonely, 

And tell them what they ought to do : 
"Love other folk," he pleaded, 
"As you love me and I love you!" 
But almost no one heeded. 
[170] 



An Inland City 

A poet died In Galilee, 

They stared at him and slew him . . . 
What would they do to you and me 

If we could say we knew him? 



[171] 



Away from 
Grenstone 



THE DEATH-BED OF A CERTAIN RICH 

MAN 

WHERE they have left me, cold upon 
the bed, 
I am not breathing, but I am not dead — 
Blind, I see the thorns upon a head. 
Motionless, I travel, inward bound, 
Deaf, I hear a penetrating sound 
Of voices risen from the silent ground. 
His voice, the Nazarene's, in theirs renewed, 
Speaks and encircles me, a multitude, 
'We are the Christ you never understood. 
We gave you all the love there is, to do 
Our work with; but you hoarded it and knew 
Only yourself, not us, and lived untrue 
To your great privilege. Now, when you lie 
So still that you can hear us — tell us why!'— 
O Christ, I thought you were only one. I die." 



[ 172] 



//. WEST 



Can prairies, towns and mountains separate 
fVisdom from wisdom^ answering mate from mate? 



West 



I TURN AND FIND YOU 

MILES from you I turn and find you, 
My beloved. And your gaze 
And the ripple of your garment 

And your unexpected ways 
Of approaching and of speaking 

And the breath of your hair 
Are as real to me as rain is 
Through hot summer air. 

In far companies I meet you 

Moving natural and clear, 
Coming toward me in your beauty . . . 

O, be careful, they will hear, 
They will look at us, these others, 

They will listen when your hand 
Touches tumult on my shoulder — 

Like the surf on the sand! 



[175] 



Away from 
Grenstone 



KANSAS 

WHEN you had come through Kansas 
To your New Hampshire hills, 
Their roundnesses, their cloistered roads, 
Their sharpnesses, their rills, 

An empty area, nothing else. 
These reaches seemed to you; 

But here in Kansas where you were 
I am in Grenstone too, 

And yet not out of Kansas 

No matter where I go — 
For I will add to my own land now 

This easy ample flow, 

Will add to my New England 

This openness as clear 
On earth as it is in heaven, 

No hills to interfere. 

[176] 



West 



Wave after wave In Kansas 
A wisdom comes to me 

From the levels of the world, 
Consoling as the sea. 



[ 177] 



Away from 
Grenstone 



THE HILLS OF SAN JOSE 

LOOK at the long low hills of golden brown 

With their little wooded canyons 

And at the haze hanging Its beauty in the air — 
And I am caught and held, as a ball Is caught 

and held by a player 

Who leaps for it in the field. 

And as the heart in the breast of the player beats 
toward the ball, 

And as the heart beats In the breast of him who 
shouts toward the player, 

So my heart beats toward the hills that are play- 
ing ball with the sun, 

That leap to catch the sun from your hills 

Or from you 

And to throw it to other hills — 

Or to me ! 



[178] 



West 



A BAZAAR BY THE SEA 

SCENT of sunken wood and wind wet with 
weeds and lifting spray, 
Bitter with a wandered tear from some deep for- 
gotten face 
That has lain and weary turned, whiter, cleaner, 

day by day 
With the quiet nether waves In a wilderness of 
space: 

How you haunt my mouth and hold my heart and 

mortify my soul 
With a sense of women lying faint and lonely in 

the sea, 
While the waters that have wasted them, arising 

from them, roll 
Shadows of them on the shore and their loveliness 

to me. 

I have bought their broken beauty and have won- 
dered all the time 

Whether you I love shall ever lie releasing, with 
a moan, 

[ 179 ] 



Away from 
Grenstone 

For strange hands to purchase and for strange lips 

to rhyme, 
Pearls and corals, corals, pearls, changing from 

your blood and bone ! 



[i8o] 



West 



THE GOLDEN GATE 

THERE comes a breath of Cella through the 
sky . . . 

The sun Is setting pallid as a moon 

Behind the airy mountains of the fog. 

Clouds march In wonder through the Golden Gate. 

The base of Tamalpals, reaching down, 

Alters Its outline to a cloud. Bright rocks, 

With eddies gathered round them and with gulls 

Huddled along their tops, vary and jut; 

The crowds of water toppling high with foam 

Crumble and fall and mingle and are gone. 

And bubbly spindrift pulses on the sand. 

A small wild-aster glimmers from the cliff. 

Two shadowy sea-birds hasten to the sea. 

And in the hush a song-sparrow begins 

To sing of Cella by her inland rill. 

And through the mingled blue of bay and sky 

The moon Is risen golden as a sun . . . 

Earth and the sun and moon and you and I. 

[i8i] 



Away from 
Grenstone 



MY COUNTRY 

A FLAG above me and an evening gun 
Are not my country's colors and salute 
This is my country's reach, the sea and sky, 
These are her cannon booming on the shore. 



[182] 



PFest 



TRAIN-MATES 

OUTSIDE hove Shasta, snowy height on 
height, 
A glory; but a neghglble sight. 

For you had often seen a mountain-peak 

But not my paper. So we came to speak . « . 

A smoke, a smile, — a good way to commence 
The comfortable exchange of difference ! — 
You a young engineer, five feet eleven, 
Forty-five chest, with football In your heaven. 
Liking a road-bed newly built and clean. 
Your fingers hot to cut away the green 
Of brush and flowers that bring beside a track 
The kind of beauty steel lines ought to lack, — 
And I a poet, wistful of my betters, 
Reading George Meredith's high-hearted letters, 
Joining betweenwhile In the mingled speech 
Of a drummer, circus-man, and parson, each 
Absorbing to himself — as I to me 
And you to you — a glad Identity! 

[183] 



Away from 
Grenstone 

After a time, when the others went away, 
A curious kinship made us choose to stay, 
Which I could tell you now ; but at the time 
You thought of baseball teams and I of rhyme, 
Until we found that we were college men 
And smoked more easily and smiled again; 
And I from Cambridge cried, the poet still: 
"I know your fine Greek theatre on the hill 
At Berkeley!" With your happy Grecian head 
Upraised, "I never saw the place," you said — - 
"Once I was free of class, I always went 
Out to the field." 

Young engineer, you meant 
As fair a tribute to the better part 
As ever I did. Beauty of the heart 
Is evident in temples. But it breathes 
Alive where athletes quicken curly wreaths, 
Which are the lovelier because they die. 
You are a poet quite as much as I, 
Though differences appear in what we do. 
And I an athlete quite as much as you. 
Because you half-surmised my quarter-mile 
And I your quatrain, we could greet and smile. 

[184] 



West 



Who knows but we shall look again and find 
The circus-man and drummer, not behind 
But leading in our visible estate — 
As discus-thrower and as laureate? 



[185] 



Away from 
Grenstone 



SHASTA 

THE canyon Is deep shade beneath 
And the tall pines rise out of It. 
In the sun beyond, brilliant as death, 
Is a mountain big with burled breath- 
Hark, I can hear the shout of It! 



The engine, on the curve ahead. 

Turns Into sight and busily 
Sends up a spurt out of a bed 
Of coal that lay for centuries dead 
But now recovers dizzily. 



What shall I be, what shall I do 

In what divine experiment, 
When, ready to be used anew, 
I snap my nursmg-bonds in two 
And fling away my cerement? 
[i86] 



West 



Shall my good hopes continue still 

And, gathering Infinity, 
Inhabit many a human will? — 
An Indian In me, toward that hill, 

Conceives himself divinity. 



[187] 



Away from 
Grenstone 



ACKNOWLEDGMENT 

iOOR as I am in what men count 
As fortune, lacking In the goods 
And gains that make men paramount- — 
When I inquire of fields and woods 
For happiness, they tell me true 
How rich I am In only you. 

Far as I am from you this day, 

Impatient of the distance, fain 

To lessen It and ease the way 

With lesser loves — I learn through pain 

The comprehension, old and new, 

Of being near to only you. 

Dumb as I was when I would tell 
My gratitude and voice my love — 
Your voice was in me like a bell 
At mass when congregations prove 
Their souls in silence. I could do 
No better than be dumb to you. 
[i88] 



West 



Brief as I am In my essay 
Of life and love — I Importune 
No more and I have put away 
Impatience. I have touched my boon, 
My proof, my vision through the blue — 
Eternity is only you. 



[189] 



///. SOUTH 



Some of love's words I missed when I was near- 
I must be far from them, to hear them clear. 



South 



A TORCH 

THE sun at last 
Gilds me again, 
And my face is no more a white stalk of celery 
But a golden mango, 
And the foot-tracked mud of my heart 
Is sunk deep down 
In the blue waters and purified 
With coral . . . 

Cranes carry peace to the east and the west — 

Celia, Celia, 

The thought of you stands clear by the mangroves, 

A torch, 

A flamingo ! 



[ 193] 



Away from 
Grenstone 



HONEYCOMB 

I'M goin' back a-lookin' for the honeycomb, 
Back to the jungle, 'way back home — 

"The honeycomb that's growin' In the holes o' 

trees 
An' you reach it by a-scrabblin' up wi' both your 

knees 
While you whistle 'bout yo' baby to keep away 

the bees. 

"I'm goln' where the honey crackles in the mouth, 
Back to the jungle, 'way back south — 

"For southern comb Is sweeter'n northern chew- 

In'-gum 
An' when you call the yaller-blrds, they always 

come. 
An' If they see the honey, they ask you for some. 

"Back there In the jungle, 'way back home, 
I'm goin' to spend my old age eatin' honey- 
comb — 

[ 194] 



South 

"Bananas an' watermelons, pineapples an' fruit 
An' all the birds o' paradise a livln' man can 

shoot, 
An' I'll eat 'em while a-leanin' on a mangrove- 
root. 

"An' when I've had a plenty, 'way back south, 
There's goln' to come a angel an' kiss me on 
the mouth — 

"A angel with a big wing both sides her head, 
The front feathers white an' the hind feathers 

red. 
It'll be the kiss o' heaven that'll make me glad 

I'm dead. 

"An' I won't have to hunt no mo' back home, 
With a angel every side o' me — bringin' hon- 
eycomb." 



[19s] 



Away from 
Grenstone 



A MOCKING-BIRD 

AN arrow, feathery, alive, 
He darts and sings — 
Then with a sudden skimming dive 

Of striped wings 
He finds a pine and, debonair, 

Makes with his mate 
All birds that ever rested there 
Articulate. 

The whisper of a multitude 

Of happy wings 
Is round him, a returning brood, 

Each time he sings. 
Though heaven be not for them or him 

Yet he Is wise 
And tiptoes daily on the rim 

Of paradise. 



[196] 



South 



GOOD-MORNING, MR. MOCKING-BIRD 

GOOD-MORNING, Mr. Mocklng-BIrd. 
"Your own good-morning, sir, to you!" 
There never was, upon my word, 
A single song so true — 

Yet I am told you pilfer songs. 
Yes, any song you chance to hear, 
And never doubt if it belongs 
To you, you buccaneer. 

''But tell me, sir, if I am deft 
At adding songs to my own store 
And yet if all the songs are left 
Just as they were before, 

"And if I fly about and love 
Beauty as any bird has lief, 
The song of whip-poor-will and dove 
And thrush, — am I a thief? 

[ 197] 



Away from 
Grenstone 

''Of course, dear sir, you never heard 
A song, a single song, so true!" 
Good-morning, Mr. Mocking-Bird. 
"Good-morning, sir, to you I" 



[198] 



South 



A GRENSTONE ELM 

WHEN I watched an elm, a Grenstone tree, 
Curtain a star to bed, 
I thought of the swinging stars at sea, — 
Wished I were there instead. 

But now when I watch the open dome 

Of the big and lonely sea, 
And think of the Grenstone elm at home, 

Home's the place for me! 



[ 199] 



Away from 
Gr ens tone 



O TAKE ME UP TO GRENSTONE 

OTAKE me up to Grenstone ! — 
Monadnock leads the way 
Where the stars are in the evening 

And the birds are in the day, 
Where friends are in their gardens 

And little children play— 
G take me up to Grenstone 
And I'll never come away, 
Never, never! 

O take me up to Grenstone 

Where the sun is in the sky 
And where Celia loves to wander 

Just as worshipful as I, 
Where the mountain leans and comforts 

When little children die — 
O take me up to Grenstone ! 

Could I ever tell you why? — 
Ever, ever? 

[ 200 ] 



IV, A CITY BY THE SEA 



Above the noise of countless busy men. 
The voice I love whispers again — again! 



A City by 
the Sea 



PRESENCE 

WHATEVER I may see, 
Of old or new 

Or good or evil or unknown, 
Partakes of you 

To be made whole — 
Can only be 
Your flesh, your bone, 

Celia, your soul. 



[203] 



Away from 
Grenstone 



TO A PAINTER 

WHERE that corner-house then stood, 
Where your room was, and our talks, 
Laths and doors and tumbled bricks 
Pile their dust upon the walks — 

Thrown by no slow touch of time, 
No quick blast of magic fire. 
But by sure, destroying hands, 
Hands of builders, building higher. 

But the builders, with their derricks, 
They shall never reach so high 
As the blue-ascending tower 
We were building in the sky. 

Never seeing what we built there 
Higher than in all the lands. 
Yet they cannot change our corner 
Where a topless tower stands. 

[ 204 ] 



A City by 
the Sea 



APOLLO TROUBADOUR 

WHEN a wandering Italian 
Yesterday at noon 
Played upon his hurdy-gurdy 
Suddenly a tune, 

There was magic in my ear-drums: 
Like a baby's cup and spoon 
Tinkling time for many sleigh-bells, 
Many no-school, rainy-day-bells, 
Cow-bells, frog-bells, run-away-bells. 
Mingling with an ocean medley 
As of elemental people 
More emotional than wordy — 
Mermaids laughing off their tantrums, 
Mermen singing loud and sturdy, — 
Silver scales and fluting shells. 
Popping weeds and gurgles deadly, 
Coral chime from coral steeple, 
Intermittent deep-sea bells 
Ringing over floating knuckles, 
[205] 



Away from 
Grenstone 



Burled gold and swords and buckles, 
And a thousand bubbling chuckles, 
Yesterday at noon, — 
Such a melody as star-fish. 
And all fish that really are fish. 
In a gay, remote battalion 
Play at midnight to the moon! 

Could any playmate on our planet, 
Hid in a house of earth's own granite. 
Be so devoid of primal fire 
That a wind from this wild crated lyre 
Should find no spark and fan it? 
Would any lady half In tears. 
Whose fashion, on a recent day 
Over the sea, had been to pay 
Vociferous gondoliers. 
Beg that the din be sent away 
And ask a gentleman, gravely treading 
As down the aisle at his own wedding. 
To toss the foreigner a quarter 
Bribing him to leave the street; 
That motor-horns and servants' feet 
Familiar might resume, and sweet 
[206] 



A City by 
the Sea 



To her offended ears, 

The money-music of her peers I 

Apollo listened, took the quarter 
With his hat off to the buyer, 
Shrugged his shoulder small and sturdy, 
Led away his hurdy-gurdy 
Street by street, then turned at last 
Toward a likelier piece of earth 
Where a stream of chatter passed, 
Yesterday at noon; 
By a school he stopped and played 
Suddenly a tune . . . 
What a melody he made ! 
Made in all those eager faces. 
Feet and hands and fingers! 
How they gathered, how they stayed 
With smiles and quick grimaces, 
Little man and little maid! — 
How they took their places. 
Hopping, skipping, unafraid. 
Darting, rioting about. 
Squealing, laughing, shouting out I 
How, beyond a single doubt, 
[ 207 ] 



Away from 
Grenstone 



In my own feet sprang the ardor 

(Even now the motion lingers) 

To be joining In their paces ! 

Round and round the handle went, — 

Round their hearts went harder; — 

Apollo urged the happy rout 

And beamed, ten times as well content 

With every son and daughter 

As though their little hands had lent 

The gentleman his quarter. 

(You would not guess — nor I deny — 

That that same gentleman was II) 

No gentleman may watch a god 
With proper happiness therefrom; 
So street by street again I trod 
The way that we had come. 
He had not seen me following 
And yet I think he knew; 
For still, the less I heard of It, 
The more his music grew: 
As if he made a bird of it 
To sing the distance through ... 
And, O Apollo, how I thrilled, 
[ 208 ] 



A City by 
the Sea 



You liquid-eyed rapscallion, 

With every twig and twist of spring, 

Because your music rose and filled 

Each leafy vein with dew — 

With melody of olden sleigh-bells, 

Over-the-sea-and-far-away-bells, 

And the heart of an Italian, 

And the tinkling cup and spoon, — 

Such a melody as star-fish. 

And all fish that really are fish, 

In a gay remote battalion 

Play at midnight to the moon! 



[209] 



Away from 
Grenstone 



TO A FIELD-SPARROW 

CHIRPING frequenter of meadow and tree, 
Merry confrere of the mowing, 
Here in New York, where awhile I must be, 
I remember your coming and going. 

Clearer I hear you than clocks in their towers 

As, singing the city to scorn 
In a flourishing business of grasses and flowers, 

You scatter the minting of morn. 

And so in my bath-tub I sing with a will 
And I hum in the heart of the town 

And try to be happy as though I could trill 
With a whistle of feathery brown, 

As though I could nest in a nook of the sky 
Or swing there and dive in the blowing — 

Accepting and singing without caring why 
And letting who will do the knowing. 

[210] 



A City by 
the Sea 



WHAT MAN CAN CALL ME CAPTIVE? 

WHAT man can call me captive ? — who am 
free 
To cross the bridge afoot at six o'clock, 
To loose myself along that human sea ; 

Or else, at midnight, high above a dock 
Of darkness — small, remote, unreal, beneath — 
Upon my brow to bear the stars, a fresh and liv- 
ing wreath. 

"Is this a captive? — who at slightest cost 
Sailing the harbor in the twillt air. 
Sees the young Venice, whom the world had lost. 

Breathlessly lift her might again, and wear 
Her flowing jewels with a wiser grace 
Than If she had not changed her century and 
dwelling-place. 

"Is this a captive? — whom the seventh day 
Can lead upon the headlands and the crags, 

[211] 



Away from 
Grenstone 

Show him the river, open him the way 

To all the wide-flung gates and high-blown 
flags 
Of liberty- — and, as the sunset falls, 
Stretch for his worship, overstream, beauty of 
roofs and walls. 

"A thousand streets are mine. Or, If I choose, 
They all shall lead me to an outer place ; 
Where I shall cover miles of beach and muse 
Upon the windy world that woos my face 
With buffets — crying back: 'Am I not he 
Who, having served the city, by the city Is set 
free!'" 



[212] 



A City by 
the Sea 



A SPRING-SONG IN A CAFE 



A 



S gray, on the table, lay his hand 
As the root of a tree in a barren land. 
Or a rope that lowers the dead. 



As gray as a gravestone was his head, 
And as gray his beard as dusty grain; 
But his eyes were as gray as the rain — 

As gray as the rain that warms the snow, 
The bridegroom who brings, to the grass 
below, 
A breath of the wedding-day. 

O, his eyes were the gray of a rain in May 
That shall quicken and mate a dead May- 
queen, 
Shall waken and marry a queen of the May 
When all the graves are green I 



[213] 



Away from 
Grenstone 



THE HIGHEST BIDDER 

TO the highest bidder, 
Your birthplace, Walt Whitman, 
Under the hammer ... 

The old farm on Paumanok, north of Huntington, 
Its trees, 

Its leaves of grass! 
Voices bid and counterbid over those ninety 

acres ... 
And your own voice among them, like an element, 
Roaring and outbidding. 



[214] 



A City by 
the Sea 



ISRAEL 

THE shaken beauty of a race 
Was centered in that single face, 
And the ancestral woes were there 
Deep in a weeping shroud of hair; 
The captive glory of her head 
Was Israel live, and Israel dead. 

No title once the earth could tell 
So proud as born in Israel. 
Tonight I saw that pride of old, 
In the contempt with which she sold 
Cheap in a modern market-place 
The attar of a bruised race. 

I saw a king who kissed in awe 
Those eyes, and on her cheek I saw 
The singing lips of a shepherd-boy 
Give kisses twelve for very joy; 
But red as a sun in time of drouth, 
Was Judas burning on her mouth. 

[215] 



Away from 
Grenstone 



Lost was her visage, like a moon, 
And through her shame in misty swoon, 
Moved with a less illustrious light, 
But with the same immortal might. 
Now drawing men to appraise a face, 
That once drew God to choose a race. 



[216] 



A City by 
the Sea 



ACROSS THE COUNTER 

YOU call me stingy, do you, Sam? 
Well, that's the kind of girl I am. 

"Look, there's the man who owns the store, 
A moral man, they say; 

Packs of money — spot his pearl — 

But It kind of makes me sore 
What he gives us for our pay, 
Working all these hours a day. 

"About that supper? I don't know. 
O, well — don't get so fierce ! I'll go. 

"Ain't there nothing more In life 
But drudgery and food? 
Wish to God he'd ask me out — 
I'd tell him things to think about I 
But no, he's faithful to his wife. 
I guess he's never understood 
That that ain't all of being good. 

I'm sorry, ma'am. What kind of fur? 
I had another customer." 
[217] 



Away from 
Grenstone 



HOME 



a 



YOU ask me why I give him all 
My earnings and luck-money too, 
And sin and suffer for his gain? 
I'll answer you. 



*'A lilac grew not far from home, 
The way we children always went — 
He beats me if I buy or borrow 
Lilac scent." 



[218] 



A City by 
the Sea 



UNION SQUARE 

TWO hags were huddled side by side 
At dawn in Union Square, 
Corrupt and silent. One had died. 
The other waited there. 

One of them now lay at rest 

From her nocturnal beat, 
Newspapers round her face and breast, 

Her bonnet at her feet. 

The other — sunken was her head. 
Her smile was drunk and dreary — 

Not even knowing what she said. 
Called to me, "Hullo, dearie!" 



[219] 



Away from 
Grenstone 



DIANA CAPTIVE 

{The Samt-Gaudens Figure) 

CAPTIVE, she hunts on her tower, 
Caught in her turning flight 
From the covert of her bower 
To the covert of the night. 

Again the rising day 

Renews her in the sky, 
Her hand still poised the way 

Her arrow used to fly. 

Still the winds about her 

Are winding sun and rain ; 
Still they will not doubt her 

The mistress of the vane. 

They bring to eyes of gold 

The flashing of a fawn, 
They sing the call of old 

To feet as white as dawn. 
[ 220 ] 



A City by 
the Sea 



But toward a final goal, 
With blindly turning face, 

Diana, like the soul. 

Goes captive on her chase. 



[221 ] 



Away from 
Grenstone 



A NIGHT-THOUGHT 

IT'S night, and I turn to the park to rest 
From the motor-cars of day, 
And the moon is here and manifest, 
Which I thought was far away. 

And how I wish this quivering bough 

Were over Celia too! 
But the miles are as many to Grenstone now 

As moons like this are few. 

O time of youth, and O, the keen 

Word we never have said! — 
The distance that can come between 

The living and the dead! 



[222 ] 



A City by 
the Sea 



THE PATH 

I SHALL see the path to enter 
From the window of the train- 
Near the station, Grenstone Center, 
And I'll enter it again. 

Never was another village 

Just that far and just that size, 

In the midst of happy tillage, 
In the hilly land of skies, 

With each vigilant white steeple 
Like a shepherd in the sun 

Shepherding especial people, 
Calling to them one by one — 

Calling vainly to the dearest 

Of the villagers, to you, 
For the hymns are always clearest, 

You have told me, with a view — 

[223] 



Away from 
Grenstone 



And on Sundays you have hid you 
Where the columbine and fern 

Wave you on and on, to bid you 
Face the mountahi at the turn . . . 

Flow Fll hurry to be out there 
When my troubles loose their holdl- 

Knowing nestling all about there 
Nooks of green and nooks of gold. 

O, if ever was a yellow 

Nest of summer in the sun 

Dearly loved of any fellow^ — 
Grenstone, Grenstone is the one I 



[224] 



A City by 
the Sea 



u 



JOURNEY 

NTIL I reach her window-sill 
The whole wide world is standing still. 



Some sun more lovely overhead 

Is shining on my lover — 
So what to me this pebbly bed 

That waters wander over. 
And what to me this rippling spread 

Of timothy and clover? 

What music has the hermit-thrush, 

He might as well be still, 
What color in the evening hush, 

What calm upon the hill. 
Until I see the climbing bush 

Beside her window-sill? 

O, is there any means of grace 
Except in seeing Celia's face? 

[225] 



III. GRENSTONE AGAIN 



/. CELIA 



Each of love's lovely words but makes the rest 
The lovelier — //// all are loveliest. 



Celia 



o 



JOURNEY'S END 

HEDGE so thick, how can I walt!- 
Open, open, little gate ! 



And let me gain you, my delight, 
White rose with thorny dart, 

And hold you all the summer night 
Close to my beating heart — 

For there has been too much of light 
Keeping us apart ... 

Hark, In the dawn, the thrush begins. 
After the whip-poor-will! — 

And day, awaking lovers, wins 
Its way upon the hill; 

And the cunning spider lurks and spins; 
But we dream still . . . 

That death Is only a pilgrim star — 
Whose journey's end is where we are. 

[231 ] 



Grenstone Again 



GRENSTONE 

I FACE the ancient mountain 
And the little modern town, 
Monadnock over Grenstone, 
And my head bows down. 

It's like old-fashioned praying: 
To let the forehead bend 

In suddenness and silence, 

And to find the town a friend 

And to be upheld by a mountain, 
Till troubles end. 



[232] 



Celia 



LEST I LEARN 

THE tick of time is less acute 
Than the most trivial word you say- 
More wonderful than Eden's fruit 
Your lips each moment of the day! 

Lest I learn, with clearer will, 
Such wonder cannot be, 
Kiss me, Celia, nearer still, 
And make a fool of me ! 

Rarer than comets waited for 
Or rays of dawn in all the lands, 
Move your two feet upon the floor, 
Gleam the ten fingers of your hands. 

Lest I learn, with clearer sight, 
Such wonder cannot be, 
Pull a bandage, bind it tight, 
Blind me — I would not see! 

[233] 



Grenstone Again 



BEYOND A MOUNTAIN 

SOMEWHERE beyond a mountain lies 
A lake the color of your eyes — 
And I am mirrored like a flight 
Of swallows in that evening-light. 

Lovers eternal, side by side, 
Closed in the elemental tide, 
Nurture the root of every land — > 
So is my hand within your hand. 

Somewhere beyond an island ships 
Bear on their sails, as on your lips 
You bear and tend it from the sun, 
The blossom of oblivion. 

Eternal lovers, in whom death 
And reaching rains have mingled breath. 
Are drawn by the same draught apart- — 
So is my heart upon your heart. 

[ 234 ] 



Celia 



Somewhere beyond a desert rolls 
An ocean that is both our souls — 
Where we shall come, whatever be, 
I unto you, you unto me. 



[ 235 ] 



Grenstone Again 



THE MYSTIC 

Y seven vineyards on one hill 
We walked. The native wine 
In clusters grew beside us two, 
For your lips and for mine, 

When, "Hark!" you said — "Was that a 
bell 

Or a bubbling spring we heard?" 
But I was wise and closed my eyes 

And listened to a bird. 

For as summer-leaves are bent and shake 
With singers passing through. 

So moves in me continually 
The winged breath of you. 

You tasted from a single vine 
And took from that your fill — 

But I inclined to every kind, 
All seven on one hill. 



Celia 



BREATH 

WHEN so I lean my hand upon your shoul- 
der, 
When so I let my fingers fall forward 
To the delicate arch of the breath, 
To this most palpable cover and mold 
Of the waves of life, 
It is not you nor love I love — but life Itself. 

I look at you with a stranger, older Intimacy, 

I forget who you are whom I love, 

With your temporal face, 

I forget this or any of the generations 

And Its temporal face 

And the lovely curious fallacy of choice . . . 

Beyond the Incomprehensible madness 
Of the shoulder and the breast. 
Above the tumult of obliteration, 

I sow and reap upon the clouded tops of moun- 
tains 

[237 ] 



Grenstone Again 

And am myself both sown and harvested, 
And, from afar off, I behold, forget, achieve, 
You and myself and all things. 
When so I let my hand fall forward 
To the remote circumference of breath. 



[238] 



//. NEWS 



If a tale of doom arrive — love, hearing itj 
Can make the deathful tidings exquisite. 



News 



PASSING NEAR 

I HAD not till to-day been sure, 
But now I know: 
Dead men and women come and go 
Under the pure 
Sequestering snow. 

And under the autumnal fern 

And carmine bush, 
Under the shadow of a thrush. 

They move and learn; 

And in the rush 

Of all the mountain-brooks that wake 

With upward fling, 
To brush and break the loosening cling 

Of ice, they shake 

The air with spring! 

I had not till to-day been sure, 

But now I know : 
Dead youths and maidens come and go 

Beneath the lure 

And undertow 

[241] 



Grenstone Again 



Of cities, under every street 

Of empty stress, 
Or heart of an adulteress — - 

Each loud retreat 

Of lovelessness. 

For only by the stir we make 

In passing near 
Are we confused and cannot hear 

The ways they take 

Certain and clear. 

To-day I happened in a place 

Where all around 
Was silence; until, underground, 

I heard a pace, 

A happy sound 

And people there, whom I could see, 

Tenderly smiled, 
While under a wood of silent wild 

Antiquity 

Wandered a child, 
[242] 



News 



Leading his mother by the hand, 

Happy and slow, 
Teaching his mother where to go 

Under the snow . . . 
Not even now I understand. 

I only know. 



[243] 



Gr ens tone Again 



"THEY BROUGHT ME BITTER NEWS" 

THEY told me, Jack, that you were 
dead . . . 
How could I answer what they said 
Or stay indoors that night to look 
In any face or any book!— 
I fumbled at the pasture-bars, 
I climbed the hill and faced the stars. 

Then from the Grenstone lights that lay 
As if they touched the Milky Way, 
You followed me when I looked back . . . 
And I laughed out loud because you, Jack, 
Were death forever and for aye 
And left me nothing sad to say. 



[244] 



News 



w 



THE FLING 

E pondered much, old friend, on what was 
known 
To us of truth; 
And then we let It well alone 
And went along with youth! 

"Life and death shall be one to us, 

We still would say, 
''Though death seem different" ... as It does 

To-day. 

And yet I fling reminders to the grave 

Of how we laughed, we two, 
As hand in hand we met the mortal wave — 

That first has covered you. 



[245] 



Grenstone Again 



TIDINGS 

GONE, but beside me in the upper air; 
Silent, but singing; vivid, though unseen; 
You have not left me here but found me there: 
That, O my friend. Is what your whisperings mean. 

Whisper them often, lest by learning well 
The simple satisfaction of our end. 
You find through this brief time, no need to tell 
Eternity's good-tidings to a friend. 



[246] 



News 



AN ANGEL 



"^ ^OTHING so falls from us as idleness 



N' 



When we are dead." 
Who he was I can only giiess, 
But that is what he said. 



[247] 



Grenstone Again 



GRIEVE NOT FOR BEAUTY 

GRIEVE not for the Invisible, transported 
brow 
On which like leaves the dark hair grew, 
Nor for the lips of laughter that are now 
Laughing Inaudibly in sun and dew, 
Nor for those limbs, that, fallen low 
And seeming faint and slow, 
Shall soon 
Discover and renew 
Their shape and hue — 

Like birches varying white before the moon 
Or a wild cherry-bough 
In spring or the round sea — 
And shall pursue 

More ways of swiftness than the swallow dips 
Among, and find more winds than ever blew 
To haven the straining sails of unimpeded ships. 



[248] 



News 



THREE POPLARS 

THREE poplars paused beside a brook 
Before the autumnal mountain, 
Then bowed to me, and undertook 
The dance of death and shone and shook 
Like waters in a fountain. 

O, high the happy bosom heaves 
When love is in the dancer! 
But life falls quiet as the leaves, 
And soon the dance of death bereaves 
A lover of his answer. 

Lightly a girl had danced away 
Her breath and all her laughter; 

A boy went joining her one day; 

And a little fellow, at his play, 
Saw them and followed after . . . 

And now three poplars poised and shook 

Like waters in a fountain 
And, iridescent, undertook 
The dance of death beside a brook 

Between me and the mountain. 

[ 249] 



///. HAND IN HAND 



A lover, with new eyes, can turn and see 
All men companions in his destiny. 



Hand in Hand 



THE CALENDAR 

CELIA, my calendar, declaring clear 
That gladness is in season all the year, 

You tell for me the springtime; 

When through sweetened air 
We follow over Grenstone hills^ — 

And find youth everywhere. 

You tell for me the summer, 

The blueness of sky, 
The refuge, the open bower 

Above adversity. 

And when you count the autumn, 

Soft in your lips I hear, 
And in the whisper of the hills, 

A little unborn year . . . 

And when you count the winter. 

The drift, the fold, 
We find old age a hidden hearth — 

Though the winds blow cold. 

So you recount our footsteps on a star 
Outshining death, Celia, my calendar ! 

[253 ] 



Grenstone Again 




LITTLE PAN 

UT on the hill — -by an autumn-tree 

As red as his cheek in the weather- — 
He waved a sumac-torch of glee 

And preened, like a scarlet feather, 
A branch of maple bright on his breast 

And shook an oak in his cap; 
And the dance of his heels on the rocky crest 
Was a woodpecker's tap-tap-tap. 

The eyes of a squirrel were quick in his head 

And the grace of a deer in his shoulder, 
And never a cardinal beckoned so red 

As his torch when he leapt on a boulder; 
A robin exclaiming he mocked in a voice 

Which hurried the heavens around him. 
What could we do but attend and rejoice, 

Celia and I who had found him I 

He spied us at last, though we hid by a pine; 

And before he might vanish In smoke 
I tried to induce him to give us a sign, 
But he stopped in his dance when I spoke — 
[254] 



Hand in Hand 

"O tell me your name and the hill you inhabit!" 
He curled round his tree like a cat; 
'*They call me," he cried, as he fled like a rabbit, 
"Donovan's damned little brat I" 



[255] 



Gr ens tone Again 



GOD'S ACRE 

ECAUSE we felt there could not be 
A mowing in reality 
So white and feathery-blown and gay 
With blossoms of wild caraway, 
I said to Celia, "Let us trace 
The secret of this pleasant place!'* 
We knew some deeper beauty lay 
Below the bloom of caraway, 
And when we bent the white aside 
We came to paupers who had died: 
Rough wooden shingles row on row, 
And God's name written there — John Doe. 



[256] 



Hand in Hand 



TO ANYONE 

WHETHER the time be slow or fast, 
Enemies, hand in hand, 
Must come together at the last 
And understand. 

No matter how the die is cast 

Nor who may seem to win, 
You know that you must love at last — 

Why not begin? 



[257] 



Grenstone Again 



WAR 

FOOLS, fools, fools, 
Your blood is hot to-day. 
It cools 
When you are clay, 

It joins the very clod 
Wherein at last you see 
The living God, 
The loving God, 
Which was your enemy. 



[258] 



Hand in Hand 



THE FAITH 

WHETHER she guide me through my days, 
Or lead me to the night, 
My step shall be a song of praise, 

An echo of her own delight; 
For now assuredly I know, 
(Her mere existence proves it so) 
Though less than ever understood, 
Because of Celia, God is good. 

There is more learning in her lips 

Than in great companies, — 
No tower between the stars' eclipse 

Gathers remoter rarities 
Than those that on her brow are rare 
As blossoms in a moonlit air. 

Than those that sparkle on her brow 

Like moonlight on an apple-bough. 

If wise men speak a final word 

Her silence is a better. 
Yet many a little chirping bird 

Is much my Celia's debtor; 

[259] 



Grenstone Again 

Whether she speak or hold her tongue, 
It seems alike a hymn is sung — 

As though her pause and her remark 
Circled In worship, like a lark. 

If truth be not the truth she knows. 

Let me not find it out — 
She is my faith and my repose, 

My spirit's forward battle-shout. 
It matters not what things may be. 
All things are authorized for me : 

The simple motion of her nod 

Cannot be anything but God. 



[260] 



IV. WOMEN 



And women are his awe: so that he pays 
New homage and new service all his days. 



Women 



IN THE COOL OF THE EVENING 



B 



She 

UT tell me, Adam — while I watch your face 
Turn to the moon and me — when have 



we seen 
The God who made us and who made this 

place ? — 
We say we love Him . . . Tell me what we 
mean! 

He 

I have not seen Him. But the thunder-clap 
Is His right hand, I think, holding the sword 
Of lightning — and when trees are running sap, 
My veins are running fire before the Lord, 

She 

Can that be love? — which never sees nor knows, 
But thinks it counts the deadly thunder dear. 
Which feels vague passion when the spring-sap 

flows — 
But cannot tell its rapture from its fear? 

[263] 



Grenstone Again 

He 

I fear Him less than If He answered you 
With lightning ... If He gave to me great store 
Of fruits, for loving Him, and you but few, 
For doubting Him, then I should love Him more. 

She 

The fruits are for us both. And as they spring 
From one another, so creation grows 
And teaches us that every living thing 
Adam may know as the creator knows. 

He 

Sharp in the tree the lightning stood, to shame 
And punish us I . . . This is His garden. Eve, 
Which He prepared for us before we came, 
And we are nourished only by His leave ! 

She 

Then let us go outside ! — let us rejoice 
To find with our own hands new bread and wine 
And certain love each in the other's voice ! . . . 
. . . How I have quieted your mouth with mine ! 

[264] 



Women 

He 

But how shall we succeed, beginning late? 
Water and meat are here and grapes and corn 
And there Is nothing further to create. 
The world is made and you and I are bom. 

She 

He IS but one — and, Adam, we are two ! 
Let us remake the world and take the rod ! 
So let our fire, filling my life with you 
And yours with me, create a greater God! 



[265] 



Grenstone Again 



RESPONSES 



a 



WHAT can a woman find in us, 
What has her wit divined in us? 
The utmost and the least in us — 
The angel and the beast in us.'* 



"What can a man descry in us 
And so allow the lie in us? . . 
The serpent and the dove in us- 
And O, the mother-love in us." 



1 266 ] 



Women 



ANNUNCIATION 

{Sung by the Voices of the Unborn) 



O WOMEN, wonder-brlngers, wakeners of 
earth, 
We who are about to live salute you ! 
Angelic presences foretell our birth 
To you, shaking your hearts with awe. 
Transfiguring your faces with the pity 
Which is God, thrilling your hands to write the 

law 
On many a mountain and to bring it thence 
To many a waiting city. 
Till there shall be no other punishments 
But love, no lovelier potencies than human 

birth. 
The old who are about to die dispute you. 
But we who are about to live salute you, 
O women, wonder-bringers, wakers of earth! 

[267] 



Grenstone Again 



Think not of pain in store for us nor of our death, 

But only of our life. Give us your breath 

With all its hope unbroken. 

Believe in us, that in our later time 

We may believe in you. 

Plant — in the mud about you and the grime — 

Seeds of the sublime, 

And if your faith is more than dreamed and 

spoken, 
As you have done so shall we dare to do. 
Out of your faith make deeds, O, make the world 

with It, and thus, 
An image and a token 
Of your faith — make us! 

3 

To our own mothers are we born, 
xA.lso to many mothers : yea, 

To you who build beyond your walls and doors 
A cradle of the world, 
A home, a park, a confidence, a joy; 
You who have patiently unfurled 
The gleaming flags of peace; 

[ 268 ] 



Women 

And you, beloved, with no girl or boy 

Singled from all of us; and you whose loves wan- 
dered away, 

Whom you shall rather glorify than mourn . . . 

Now generations shall be born of us and none 
dispute you, 

O women, wonder-bringers, w^akeners of earth ! 

Destiny pours 

Its fullness through you in our blr* 

And shall not cease. 

For we who are about to live salute you — - 

We are yours ! 



[269] 



V. LOSING CELIA 



How could I know that darkness would close in 
On everything that shall be or has been! 



Losing Celia 



THE NIGHT 

I HAVE so loved life that when night is deep 
I shall but fall asleep 
As a lover's eyes grow dim 
With his beloved lying close to him. 



[273] 



Grenstone Again 



I HEARD HER SING 

SHE sang of life, mating an ancient word 
With modern music in her own wise way. 
Her voice was like a little breeze that stirred 
The snows of yesterday. 

Ladies and lovers, each forgotten ghost . . . 

Her voice, with names remembered from the 
dead, 
Singing their epitaph, and Helen's most, 

Was like a heart that bled. 

In her the poet sang again his dream 

Of what had been and nevermore should 

be . . . 
And out of far away her voice would seem 

Like sails upon the sea. 

And while she finished with their dreams and 
loves. 
And the wind disposed of fortune and of 
fame. 
Her voice was Venus, led by little doves, 
Breathing a holy name. 

[ 274 ] 



Losing Celia 

Helen and Phryne and Semlramis, 

Renewed and glorious In her, were here . . . 
And yet her voice, when she had proven this, 

Was like a fallen tear. 



[275] 



Grenstone Again 



SURETY 

CELIA, we have each other's love, 
A love that flies on wings of light 
From star to star and sings above 

The night: 
We bid each other's eyes reveal 

The God whose images we are; 
We find each other's hand upon the wheel 
Piloting every star . . . 

Should I then face with a less lonely breath 
Your gradual, sudden, everlasting death? . . . 

O, lest a separating wind assail 

The jocund stars and all their ways be dearth, 
And love, undone of its Immense avail, 

Go homeless even on earth, 
Let us be constant, though we travel far. 

With the little earthly tokens of our trust. 
And not forget, piloting any star, 

How dear a thing is dust! 

[276] 



Losing Celia 



FAREWELL 

^AREWELL should be an easy word to 
say . . . 
It seemed to be for Cella yesterday. 



F 

-■- say 



Although we guessed how soon she was to die, 
Celia was laughing when we said good-by. 



[277] 



Grenstone Again 



AT THE LAST 

THERE Is no denying 
That it matters little, 
When through a narrow door 
We enter a room together, 
Which goes after, which before. 

Perhaps you are not dying: 

Perhaps — there is no knowing — 

I shall slip by and turn and laugh with you 

Because it mattered so little, 

The order of our going. 



[278] 



Losing Cell a 



HIC JACET 

SHE who could not bear dispute 
Nor unquiet, now Is mute; 
She who could not leave unsaid 
Perfect silence, now is dead. 



[279] 



Grenstone Again 



DISTANCE 

ONE day I walked alone from our dear place 
For miles. And by the corner of a hill 
I saw the chimney and your window-sill 
And all the steps that it would take to fill 
The wide and wooded intervening space. 
But I consoled my spirit: Peace, be still I — 
And soon went home again — and saw your face. 

One night we walked those miles, before you 

died . . . 
How it comes back . . . and how I touch your 

hair — 
Yet you seem farther away, In the night air, 
Than home, our happy place . . . aware 
Of you, I am without you, you abide 
In mystic distance that I cannot fare — 
For all we cling so closely side by side. 



[280] 



Losing Celia 



THERE IS NOT ANYTHING 

THERE Is not anything 
I would not do, 
Just to be journeying 
Again with you. 

There Is not anything 

I would not be, 
To have you journeying 

Again with me. 

But nothing I can do 

Or be will bring 
A word or sign from you, 

Not anything. 



[281] 



Grenstone Again 



IT IS NOT SHE ! 

I THINK she enters at the door, 
I hold my breath to hear . . 
Learn, foolish ears, that nevermore 
Can Celia come so near. 

And now she passes In the street- — 
I start around to see . . . 

But O, you quick impulsive feet. 
Turn back! — it is not she. 



[282] 



Losing Celia 



ALOOF 

BROOK, how aloof your heart has grown 
That closely beat with her and me! — 
Am I the only one 

Remembering, of us three? 

Stars now cold as stone. 

Once warm as she, 
What have you done 

To me? 



[283] 



Grenstone Again 



TRYST IN GRENSTONE 



ERE, where many a time we met 
With many a mortal vow 



Never either to forget, 
Celia, though the leaves are wet, 
Is waiting for me now. 

None for company has she 

But Grenstone trees around, 
Where she waits and waits for me, 
While I come and cannot be 
The few feet underground. 



[2843 



Losing Celia 



SENTENCE 

SHALL I say that what heaven gave 
Earth has taken? — 
Or that sleepers In the grave 
Reawaken? 

One sole sentence can I know, 

Can I say: 
You, my comrade, had to go, 

I to stay. 



[285] 



VI. FINDING CELIA 



There is no death for lovers — // there shine 

Such light through others' darkness as through mine. 



Finding Celia 



THE WIND AT THE DOOR 

THE wind is rattling at the door 
With all his vim. 
"Dance with me down the shore," he says. 
But I will not dance with him. 

I will wait with you in your place of death. 
Although I know 

How alive the wind would greet my face 
If I should go. 

I will stay with you where the light is half, 
As by a pool at evening in a wood . . . 
Or, Celia, shall we laugh again? 
Can tears do good? 

Shall you not come and share wdth me anew 
All that we had and more — 
And let the wind touch my face too? — See 
... I open the door. . . . 

Dancing again with the wind, with you. 
Dancing down the shore ! 

[289] 



Gr ens tone Again 



THE WAY OF BEAUTY 

BEAUTY came Celia's way to be 
More beautiful by far, 
As night advancing on the sea, 
Is lighted by a star. 

Then Celia followed beauty's way 

More beautiful to be, 
As when the star, before the day, 

Is taken by the sea. 



[290] 



Finding Celia 



A MASQUE OF LIFE AND DEATH 

A HOODED figure followed me, 
Striking a terror in my breast; 
Headlong I fled from him — 
No good was in his quest. 

A golden figure ran from me 
On naked feet that left no trace; 
Headlong I followed her 
But could not see her face — 

Until she turned and, while I stared 
As at the coming of great ships, 
The hooded figure seized his time 
And kissed me with her lips. 



[291 ] 



Grenstone Again 



DURING A CHORALE BY CESAR FRANCK 

N an old chamber softly lit 

We heard the Chorale played. 
And where you sat, an exquisite 
Image of life and lover of it, 

Death came to serenade. 

I know now, Celia, what you heard 

And why you turned and smiled. 
It was the white wings of a bird 
Offering flight — and you were stirred 
Like an adventurous child. 

Death sang: "There is no cause for fear, 

Uplift your countenance !'* 
And bade me be your cavalier, 
Called me to march and shed no tear, 

Said, ^'Sing to her and dance!" 

And so you followed, lured and led 

By those mysterious wings. 
And when I knew that you were dead, 
I wept . . . But now I sing instead. 

As a true lover sings. 
[292] 



Finding Celia 



I sing of you — "O, take her deep, 

And cherish and proclaim 
A more restoring calm than sleep, 
And bring the charge to all who weep 
To glorify her name !" 

And when I sing of you, you hear 

My heart, my praise, my prayer. 
Which formerly were never clear 
As now they are, for you are near 
Forever everywhere. 



[293] 



Grenstone Again 



SONGS ASCENDING 

LOVE has been sung a thousand ways- 
So let It be . . . 
The songs, ascending in your praise 
Through all my days, 
Are three. 

Your cloud-white body first I sing: 
Your love was heaven's blue 

And I, a bird, flew caroling 

In ring on ring 
Of you. 

Your nearness Is the second song: 

When God began to be 
And bound you strongly, right or wrong, 
With his own thong, 

To me. 

But O, the song, eternal, high, 

That tops these two! — 
You live forever, you who die, 
I am not I 

But you. 

[ 294] 



Finding Celia 



A PRAYER 

I SAID a prayer to God 
When I had need, 
And I saw His great head nod, 
Hearing me plead. 

I thought He answered me, 
I knelt and wept . . . 

God did not even see. 
He only slept. 

But I no longer care 

Whether He saw — 
I have answered my own prayer 

With God's own awe. 

Finding that I may be 

Mighty and nod 
At my own destiny, 

I sleep like God. 

[295 ] 



VIL AN END AND A BEGINNING 



Creator and created, God shall be 
Born forevermore — of her and me. 



An End and 
a Beginning 



HOW CAN I KNOW YOU ALL? 



H 



OW can I know you all, you who are pass- 
ing? 

You in the crowds, moving so many ways. 
You hundreds and you tens, even you twos and 

threes. 
How can I hope to know you? 
On your faces I have looked and I have seen each 

time 
Tokens of kinship, 
Patents like mine of joy 

And signs like mine of proud and piteous need, 
Of pain, of knowledge and of reparation. 
I have heard hidden In your voices every synonym 

of love. 
But O you many faces known to me far-off 
And strange to me when you are near. 
How shall I know you whom I need to know, 
Discovering your splendid lonely souls 
And mating them with mine? — 

[ 299 ] 



Grenstone Again 

Out from among you comes a voice in answer 

"How can you know 

Him whom you will not know? 

We are yourself." 



[300] 



An End and 
a Beg'nmmg 



FOR I AM NOTHING IF I AM NOT ALL 

1G0 elate along the street and care 
For you, for you, for every one I meet, 
Not only for the favored and the fair 

Along the street 
But every soul . . . you for your lips, and 

you 
For the serene compassion of your brow 
Curved like a hillside looking on a view, 

You for a glow 
Within your eyes of sunset after rain, 
You for inheritance withheld, foregone, 
For passion, melancholy, vigil, pain: 
O everyone ! 



For I am nothing if I am not all, 
For I am he who loves and cannot cease 
Till every separating barrier fall 
And there is peace. 

[301 ] 



Grenstone Again 

Spring urges me to comprehend the crowd. 
And I would take them in my arms and hold 
Their sweetness close to me. My head is 
bowed, 

Lest I be bold 
And claim the nearest-comer, and my sight 
Is blinded with the touch of destiny. 
For, Celia, people, people, by your light 

Are parts of me — 
And that is why I quiver now to greet 
Them passing, though they know not we are 

one, 
And that Is why this bright confusing street 

Shines In the sun. 



[302] 



An End and 
a Beginning 



a 



OPEN HOUSE 

THAD built my being stone by stone, 
J- With windows and with doors 
And there came a jealous company 

By twos and tens and scores, 
Seeming to claim my house from me, 

And traversed all the floors, 
As a house they had a right to own, 

Its true proprietors. 



And so I heard an angry tone. 

Another answering hoarse: 
It is not yours," said one to me 

And one to him, "Nor yours I" 
Then each to each (to me now none) 

Cried out, in scattered scores, 
That ill-acquainted company, 

"Nor yours!" "Nor yours!" ''Nor 
yours!" 

[303] 



Grenstone Again 

I took my being stone by stone, 

Its windows and its doors, 
Took it apart impartially, 

Roofs and walls and floors, 
And then when every claim was gone 

Of the jealous visitors, 
I joined my being wide and free: 

Their house and mine — and yours ! 



[304] 



A71 End and 
a Beginning 



CONSUMMATION 

'T^HERE was a strangeness on her lips, 

X Lips that had been so sure; 

She still was mine but in eclipse, 
Beside me but obscure. 

There was a cloud upon her heart; 

For, where my Celia lay. 
Death, come to break her life apart, 

Had led her love away. 

Through the cold distance of her eyes 

She could no longer see. 
But when she died, she heard me rise 

And followed quietly — 

And close beside me, looking down 

As I did on the dead. 
She made of time a wedding-gown, 

Of space a marriage-bed. 
[305] 



Grenstone Again 

I took, in her, death for a wife, 
She married death in me . . . 

And now there is no other life, 
No other God than we I 



[ 306 ] 



An End and 
a Becfinning 



BEHOLD THE MAN 

BEHOLD the man alive in me, 
Behold the man In you ! 
If there Is God — am I not he? — 
Shall I myself undo? 

I have been vi^altlng long enough . . . 
Impossible gods, good-by! 

I wait no more . . . The way Is rough- 
But the god who climbs Is I. 



[307] 



